The Choice
by Wylis
Summary: Sookie might have both Eric and Bill's blood running through her now, but with a little help, from an unexpected source, she'll realize that she doesn't love them both and she'll make the right choice. A little alternate ending to s4 starting w/ ep 9
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I usually write on the SVM side, but I'm a huge True Blood fan and, frankly, I couldn't help myself. I know that Sookie's dream sequence last week, when she proclaimed loudly that she loved both Bill and Eric, was supposed to be fun and sassy and sexy, but it just peeved me off. So I decided that I would give her another dream. I hope you like._

_I just have to give a HUGE thank you to my beta, Sheknitsnicely. I wrote this on Saturday and she was kind enough to beta this and the latest chapter of my current SVM fic all on her very hard earned free time! I love you!_

_Disclaimer: I don't own them, if I did…well, there wouldn't be a choice to make! _

When I open my eyes again, the first thing I do is brace myself to feel the horrible burning pain in my stomach. But it isn't there. Looking down, I'm completely shocked to see that the bullet wound is gone. Even more shocking is the fact that the bloody hole that had been in my t-shirt is also absent.

"Bill is giving you his blood as we speak. When you wake you will be completely healed." Turning my head in the direction of the voice, I'm startled to see Claudine standing over me.

Claudine is dead! I watched Eric drain her. How can she be here? Where_ is_ here? Bolting off the couch to put as much space as possible between us, I rush over to the fireplace, ready to pick up an iron poker at a moment's notice if needs be.

Claudine watches all my movements from her original place in back of the couch, doing nothing more than frowning at my obvious display of fear and mistrust towards her.

"I'm not here to hurt you Sookie." She says, holding up her hand.

"Then why _are_ you here? Where is here? Am I dead?" My questions all come rushing out, but I don't have a chance in heck of making them sound anymore calm or coherent. This place looks like my living room, but the sun shining through the windows is brighter and more brilliant than I've ever seen it anywhere but Faery, and of course there is the problem that my dead Fairy Godmother is here as well.

"You're not dead Sookie, you're just dreaming. As I said, Bill is giving you his blood right now, to heal your wound." I'm not quite sure that I believe her, but so far I have no reason to fight her about it, so I move on to the only other question I can think of.

"Okay…but why are you here? How are you here? You're dead!" I ask again in a flurry. Claudine smiles, but it's a very sad smile.

"I'm here because you have a choice to make, and I hoped that I could help you make the right decision. I came to you this way because it's the only way I can come to you anymore." Part of me wants to apologize for getting her killed. I really do feel bad about that, even if I'm relieved that she won't be coming to try and drag me off to be part of the Fairy/Human breeding program. But instead I just look at her, puzzled.

"What choice?" Claudine smiles again, and this time I can tell that it's because she's happy I'm not about to fight her.

"As I said, Bill is giving you his blood. When you wake up you will have both his blood and the Viking's coursing through your system. It will lead you to believe that you love both of them, and so you will need to make a choice." I know that I'm probably looking a bit stumped right now, and I can sure feel my irritation rising to a whole new level.

"Is this really the most important thing going on right now? Eric is missing, Marnie is trying to kill all my friends, Tara just betrayed me by joining forces with her, and if Bill doesn't figure out how to fix things we might all end up dying. Is my love life really that big of a deal?" This time Claudine laughs, and I have to say it's not doing a dang thing for my annoyance level.

"There are many, many things going on right now, you are right. But they will all be taken care of. The witch will be defeated, your friends, Human and Vampire will live. Bill will continue to be King and Eric will regain his memories. The only question remaining is who you will choose. As your Fairy Godmother, my job is to see to your happiness, not the greater contentment and well-being of the world."

I know there are probably a million more questions that I should ask, but Claudine's words stop me dead in my tracks. Everyone will be fine: that's wonderful! I feel like a giant bolder of worry just got lifted off my back!

Eric will get his memories back: that one not so much. I know that I've said over and over again that I want Eric to have his memories back, but the truth is, in my most selfish moments (and I've been having a lot of them lately) I don't want him to have them back, not if it changes him, or changes him back. Eric said he could never be the same if he remembered, and the thought of losing the man I've fallen so deeply in love with in the past week is just excruciating.

I don't want it to end between us. I don't want to have to let him go when I feel so deeply, so truly, but I told him the truth: I could never have let the old Eric into my bed, or my heart, so where to does that leave us?

"I suppose if Eric becomes himself again then there isn't much of a choice, is there?" I say with a choked sob, before deciding that I'd rather be pissed off than sad. "And why do I have to make a choice between Eric and Bill, anyway? What, are there no other men in this world? Why can't I choose someone else, Alcide for instance, or no one at all? Why do I even need a man?" I nod my head at the end of that little speech, proud of myself for remembering that I'm a strong, modern woman. Claudine only sighs dramatically though, and begins to explain things to me in a very slow manner, as though she's trying to make a simple child understand her.

"Sookie, you have to choose between Eric and Bill because they are the only two men that you have ever loved, or will ever love. Alcide is not a choice, because no matter how much you may like him, or how attractive you might find him, you do not love him, and you never will. And as for being alone, the possibility exists of course, but we both know that you will never be happy without love and, as I said, my job as your fairy godmother is to ensure your happiness. That means you have to choose." Well okay then. I suppose that makes sense, even if it does nothing to make me less upset about the whole thing. I still don't know why I'm going along with this all so easily but then I suppose, if this is a dream, none of it is really happening anyway. I've just been shot, I have no idea if my friends are alive and alright, I suppose I should just go easy on myself this once and take the path of least resistance. I've just been shot, for god's sake. I deserve a break!

"Alright, I'll play, but if Eric is going to be his old self again, then there still really isn't a choice. I can't love him the way he was. I never could. I already know that." I don't mean it to, but my voice drops to a whisper by the time I finish that sentence. I know that I should never have let myself love him. I know that I should have listened to myself and to Gran, but how could I help it? Attraction was never the issue. I might have been with Bill when I first saw Eric, but I would have had to have been blind, deaf and dumb not to have seen how beautiful a man he was.

On the outside Eric is perfection itself, the most exquisitely created example of what a male should be. It's what's on the inside that I could never love, and Eric's inside has always made it easy to remind myself why I have to resist him. Every time those perfect eyes looked at me with desire, or he told me how much he wanted me in that deep and sexy voice, I remembered that he was cold, manipulative, unfeeling, deceitful and, well…evil.

But when the flawed inside was replaced with something sweet and gentle and innocent, when Bill's betrayal made me free to feel the things I'd kept bottled for so long, how could I help myself? Eric without his memories might not have been the real Eric, but he is the man I have always dreamed of.

Now Claudine is standing in front of me, telling me that he'll be gone, if not by the time I wake up, then shortly afterwards. It hurts more than anything to realize that it's going to happen, no matter how much I hoped it wouldn't. But if that's the case then I need to stop lying to myself now. I need to be strong so that I can deal with losing the man I love, and not find myself giving in to the very sinister creature that just looks like him.

"I know that your feelings for Eric, now and before, have always been strong. But has it never occurred to you that they were never your own?" Claudine's answer to my question jolts me from my unhappy thoughts and I look up at her, the puzzled expression back on my face.

"Of course my feelings for Eric are my own. What are you talking about?" There is that put upon sigh again. I'm getting really tired of seeing it. Why do all Supes just automatically assume they know better than me about everything? Especially about my own life!

"No Sookie, they are not. You'd already had a great deal of Bill's blood by the time you met Eric, and in your wish to remain loyal to Bill you've allowed him to provide you with your opinions about Eric. I may not like Vampires, but I like it even less when someone allows themselves to be so easily manipulated by another. It made me truly angry to see how effortlessly Bill was maneuvering you, until I realized that it wasn't completely manipulation. You allowed yourself to believe the things Bill told you and you so quickly adopted his opinions about a person you hardly knew, because it is always easier to pretend that you hate someone than to admit that you feel things for them that are inappropriate. And I believe that your human notion of monogamy renders strong attraction to one person, when you are monogamous with another, inappropriate. Am I right?" I'm sure that my mouth was hanging open. I wanted to tell her right then and there, Fairy Godmother or not, dream or not, to pack her crap up and go to hell. But she stopped me before I could.

"Think, Sookie. Think about all the times that you've allowed yourself to be the one who formed an opinion. The roof with Godric, the night Eric saved you- in this very living room- from Russell's wolf, the kiss in his office, when you saved him from burning with Russell, when you fed him to heal him, the last week with him. At any of those times, when it was merely you and him, removed from Bill, did he ever prove himself to be the monster Bill claimed? It's true, his methods might not always line up with your human sense of gentility, but he has never betrayed you." I don't want to think about any of those things, and so I do the only thing that my hurting heart will let me: I lash out.

"Well, it seems like we know which side you're on! I thought you said this was a choice. I can't believe you're cheerleading for the Vampire who drained you! That's messed up." Sookie Stackhouse has definitely become a meaner person in the last couple of years, but I feel like it's a legit point so I don't think too much about the fact that I just shoved Claudine's death in her face.

"I am not on the Viking's side, Sookie. But you said yourself that you don't even feel there is a choice if Eric regains his memory. I'm trying to get you to understand that there is and, as much as I don't enjoy advocating the part of any Vampire, again, I am your Fairy Godmother and my job is to see you happy." If I start arguing again why this choice is so important, we'll go around and around in circles until I wake up. God, I hope I wake up. So I just nod my head.

"So what do you propose we do? Should we make a list of pros and cons? Should we do eeny meeny miny mo? Should I get some daisies and start saying 'he loves, he loves me not'?" This time, it's Claudine whose expression is puzzled, but she doesn't bother wasting time asking me what any of those things are. She just shakes her head and holds out her hand to me.

"No. I have an easier way to help you." I spend a long moment just looking at her hand. The last time I took it, she took me to Faery where I was almost enslaved and forced to participate in their breeding program. Dream or not, how far do I really want to trust her?

"I promise you, Sookie, I am here to help you, not harm you." I can't read Fairies any better than I can read Vampires, so I have no way of telling if she's being truthful with me. But something inside me, a very stupid something if I'm completely honest, is dying to know what she has up her sleeve. Knowing already that I'm making possibly the dumbest move I have all day (I'd say ever, but I'm well aware that there are plenty of other stupid decisions in my past that at least warrant consideration before I crown any one of them the dumbest decision ever), I walk across the room in three short strides and take her hand.

The room is nothing but light for a few seconds and, when it fades, we're suddenly not in my house anymore. We're standing in the entry way of Bill's house, or "new Tara" as I've come to think about it in the past week.

It doesn't look much different than the last time I was here, when Eric and I asked to fight with Bill, except that the place isn't in chaos or crawling with heavily armed guards. There are a few, to be sure, but they seem relaxed and almost…bored. It's also pitch black outside, where before the sun was streaming into my living room.

"It's night time?" I ask Claudine. She just smiles at me again.

"It is nighttime. It's also twenty years from now." I turn to look at her and I'm utterly astonished. I'm about to tell her how much I absolutely don't believe her when I see Bill coming down the stairs followed by a pretty, well dressed, middle aged woman. I gasp and then throw my hand over my mouth to stifle the sound, when I realize that the middle aged woman is me. "Don't worry Sookie, they can't see or hear us. You can gasp all you like." She says kindly, as though she does this sort of thing every day.

The scene that unfolds before us, of a night twenty years in my future, is quite nice actually. I watch as Bill kisses me lovingly on the lips and then walks to his office to conduct business while I sit with Jessica in the living room, in front of a wonderfully warm fire and talk about how things are going for her and Jason. Jason? Really?

If they could see or hear me, the first thing I would do is shake Jessica until her brain re-attached itself to the rest of her body. I mean, I love my brother and all, but Jessica is way, WAY too good for him on her darkest most, Vampiric day! I can't believe that she's with him. I'm even more shocked when I realize, from their conversation, that this is a serious, long term thing. They've been together since the end of the witch war, the whole twenty years!

As Jessica and the older me are chatting, there's a knock at the door. The guards open it quickly and Eric walks in. Part of me feels breathless at the sight of him, something that I grudgingly admit I've always felt; the other part of me is just sad. He is undoubtedly his old self once more; dark jeans, wife beater, leather jacket, necklace, slicked back hair and, of course, the cold, detached artic colored eyes.

He bows stiffly to me, calling me Majesty, and politely and utterly unemotionally enquires if Jessica and I are having a good evening. He also barely waits for a reply before turning and joining Bill in his study, so they can talk business, I guess.

I'm stunned by how utterly unchanged he seems. He's simply Sheriff Northman once more, without any indication that he knows me any better than he knows any other Human. I suppose it's for the best though. As much as Claudine would like to argue, there can't ever be anything more between me and the Real Eric. It's just…impossible.

Claudine and I watch for a long time as I go about what seems to be a typical night for me. Eventually both Eric and Jessica leave, Bill finishes his business, and he comes to join me. Sitting on the couch beside me and taking one of my hands between both of his, he tells me nothing about what his business for the night was and I don't seem to ask. Instead we have a conversation about him taking a few nights off soon, and if I would like to go somewhere. Then we talk about maybe going out to dinner the next night. It's all pleasant and I seem to be contented and happy, as does Bill, who looks at me with eyes absolutely filled with love.

Something in me warms when I see that. I suppose that, ever since I found out about the Queen, I've been trying to convince myself that Bill was lying about it all, that he never loved me and never could. But I can see it now in his face. He loves me completely and, even though twenty years have apparently passed since I chose him, he is still utterly elated that I am his.

After a little more chatting and some sweet kisses, Bill takes my hand and leads me upstairs to his…our room and gently undresses me. I watch as we take our time making love. It's all so achingly familiar and I realize that I've missed this with him. Bill was my first everything and the knowledge that we could have it all back, that we could be happy together…well, again I'm wondering where the choice is here?

Claudine looks at me as Bill and the other Sookie cuddle together afterwards, utterly content in their own blissful little world.

"He really loves me!" I say stupidly. Claudine nods her head.

"He does, and if you choose him this is the life you can have. Bill will treat you like a princess: he will care for you and love you, shelter you and protect you and respect your humanity. He will stay with you every day until the day you die, and he will mourn you when you pass." I feel the tears begin to fall from my eyes.

This is everything I ever wanted here, isn't it? _Almost _everything, I guess, but I've always known that children had no place in my life, even before Vampires came into it and made me a constant target. But everything else- the beautiful home, the loving husband, the close friends- it's all here and I can have it. When I wake up from this dream, all I have to do is say "Bill, I choose you!"

"Do you want to see what your other future could be like?" I've been so wrapped up in the knowledge that my dream of home and marriage is so easily attainable that I completely forgot about Claudine's ridiculous notion that there is some choice involved here.

"I don't see why this is all necessary, but fine, shoot." Claudine and I are once again enveloped in a shroud of white, blinding light.

When we rematerialize, we're standing in the middle of Fangtasia. I try hard not to roll my eyes, but I can't help it. I really, really hate this place. The bar patrons might not be able to see or hear me, but I can still see and hear them and as always, the only things on their minds are sex, Vampires and sex with Vampires.

I turn my head and look at the dais that usually lines the side of the bar and smile when I see that Pam's sitting on it, all stiff and bored on Eric's throne. It must be her night to…what was it she called it? Oh yes, "enthrall the vermin". Her disdain for the people paying for her lifestyle never ceases to amaze me. But then, she is Eric's child. I suppose the arrogant belief in her own inherent superiority was probably transmitted right along with his blood when he made her.

"Do we really need to do this? I can already tell you that the thought of spending a lifetime of evenings trapped in this place is pretty much my idea of Hell!" I yell over the music. Claudine just looks at me with a thoroughly annoyed expression and says, in a quiet voice I can somehow hear without any problem,

"You don't need to yell, I can hear you just fine, and yes, we do." With that, Claudine begins to walk seamlessly through the crowd and, since she's still holding my hand, I have no choice but to follow her.

We walk back to Eric's office, where Claudine and I actually walk through the door without even opening it. I'm still a little disoriented from the knowledge that I just walked through a solid object when Claudine elbows me and I realize that she wants me to pay attention to what's happening inside the room.

I look around and am once again astonished to see myself. It takes a full minute for me to realize that I don't look any different than I do right now.

"I don't understand." I tell her, whispering, even though we've already covered the fact that I don't need to. "You took me twenty years into the future with Bill. Why didn't you take me as far this time?" Claudine looks at me with a raised eyebrow, no doubt not understanding why I'm still using my best indoor voice, and answers me back at a regular volume.

"I've actually taken you father into the future this time, a hundred years from now. I couldn't do that with Bill because, if you choose him, a hundred years from now you'll be dead." She says matter-of-factly, as though it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"How is that even possible? I don't look a day older than I am right now." Claudine continues to stare at the people in the room, who seem to be having an intense conversation, as she answers me.

"I told you that Bill would respect your humanity. Part of that is letting you grow old and die, just as you would as a Human. But perhaps Bill never bothered to tell you this: Vampire blood, when not given during an injury, will bond you to the Vampire whose blood you drink and it will also greatly extend the life of the Human." This time I don't have any words for her, so I just stare, dumbfounded. Claudine still doesn't take her eyes away from the greater room, but she must see my face out of the corner of her eye because she answers my unasked question. "Several hundred years. A Human who regularly takes the blood of a Vampire can expect to live for several hundred years. But blood from one as old as Eric, I have no idea how long it could prolong a life, especially one that isn't completely Human to begin with." Processing what Claudine just said is too much for me and so I decide not to. Instead I finally start paying attention to what's happening in the room.

The other me, the hundred and twenty-eight year old version of me, if Claudine is to be believed, is standing next to Eric, her arm draped over the back of his chair and a serious expression on her face. She's been listening intently to the Vampire sitting on the other end of Eric's desk and, though she doesn't betray an emotion outwardly, I can tell she's thinking hard about whatever it is they're discussing.

Eric who sits at his desk, leaning forward, his hands clasped together on his blotter, is also deep in concentration as he talks to the other Vampire. It's an odd thing to notice, but the first thing that strikes me about him is his hair. I don't know why it should be that, except that I always hated how much gel he puts in it, and the week he's stayed with me at my house I've loved how beautiful it is when left natural. It's lighter without all the goop and so soft and it flops in front of his face when he looks down at me. It's one of those little things that I just fell so in love with and it strikes me right away, since otherwise he looks like his normal self.

His hair isn't flopping now, but it's not gelled either. It looks lovely and soft and golden, even in the harsh florescent lighting of his office, and part of me wants to go over and touch it and see if he'll notice the me that is and isn't here, running my hands through it.

I shake myself slightly, trying to tell myself to get a grip. Hair gel or no hair gel, this is the real Eric, and I already know how I feel about the real Eric. I'm not going to let a few strands of beautiful, silky sunshine sway me.

While Claudine and I have been talking and during my contemplation of Eric's hair, it seems the meeting has come to an end. The Vampire talking to us gets up and bows with deep respect, thanking his Sheriff and me as well, I'm astonished to see, and then turns and leaves.

Eric and the other me are alone in the room now and, almost as though it's a choreographed dance, I step slightly to the side, Eric pushes away from his desk with his feet and reaches out, pulling me into this lap and kissing the top of my head with a gentleness that I never thought the real Eric could be capable of.

To my utter astonishment, Eric and the other Sookie begin to talk about the meeting they just had. Why would they do that? The man was a Vampire, so clearly I couldn't read him. I listen extra hard for a moment, worried that perhaps ingesting all that Vampire blood has somehow changed my ability, but after a few moments I'm satisfied that it hasn't and that Eric isn't asking this Sookie for secret information, he's…he's asking her opinion?"

As they sit together, her on his lap, their faces only a few inches apart, their eyes completely focused on each other for long moments, I notice that the ice is completely gone from Eric's eyes. They're soft and gentle and filled with love, admiration and respect. I can't help the gasp that escapes me this time any more than I could the last time, but now it's not for my aged appearance or the shock of being supposedly transported to view a little slice of the future, it's for the knowledge that sitting there with my future self is someone who looks like "my" Eric: my gentle, loving Vampire.

How can that be? Eric, the real Eric, isn't capable of love, or gentleness! He's cold and devoid, manipulative and scheming. How can he, with all his memories, be looking at me like that?

As I stare at them, shocked, I notice that their conversation is becoming more heated. The other Sookie gets up from Eric's lap and begins to pace around the room, while Eric looks frustrated and shoves a hand through his hair. I want to turn to Claudine and tell her "I told you so". It seems so clear that Eric and I could never be happy together.

But just as I'm about to, I realize that they're arguing about what they should do: not what Eric, the Sheriff, should do, but what _they_ should do. They might be disagreeing with each other, but Eric isn't treating the other Sookie as though she's stupid or telling her that she has no right to give her opinion, and it's obvious that he doesn't keep her in the dark about his affairs or his business. Though I never thought it would be possible, it's clear that she's his partner and not his possession: his equal!

I'm about to fall over, when I realize that they've decided on a compromise. When their disagreement is over, Eric stands up from his chair and walks over to her…to me. He doesn't stop until he's right in front of her, causing him to have to bend his neck far down and the other Sookie to have to crane her neck way up. The two stare at each other for a long time, saying nothing, and then Eric closes the last bit of space between them and takes her lips with his.

The kiss starts out sweet, but it quickly becomes passionate and then moves on to the point of indecency. Eric has his arms wrapped around her, his hands under her dress, rhythmically squeezing the globes of her ass and one of her arms is around his neck, in his soft hair, exactly where I love to put it. The other one is less innocent though, as it reaches down from behind into the waist band of his tight, dark jeans, petting and squeezing that most wonderful part of him that I know I've secretly loved from the moment I first saw it.

It goes on like that for endless minutes before they manage to walk, entwined and still fused at the lips, to the couch. Their joining is beautiful, but it's far from gentle, the passion between them is so intense, so much more than it was even between me and the Eric who stayed with me.

I watch in utter awe as they cling to each other as though they're both dying of thirst and the other is an oasis. The way he touches her, the way he kisses her, the way he moves against her and inside her…I can't look away. Nor can I ignore the way she responds…the way I respond.

When they both finally fall over the edge, it's with words of such love and devotion that I'm awestruck. But they aren't finished. Eric takes a knife from his pocket and slices the side of his neck almost faster than I can see and his Sookie, still panting and flushed from her release below him, wraps her arms around him once more and begins to drink.

Eric's hand fists into her hair in a way that is so familiar to me, even though I only remember it happening once, that night in this very office when he kissed me, and he begins to thrust into her once more. He tells her how much he loves her, how much he adores her, how she will be with him always. He tells her that a thousand years together would never be enough, and her answer to such passionate devotion is to cling to him as though he is life itself.

When the wound on his neck closes, he turns slightly, kissing the blood from her lips ravenously and then sinks his fangs into her neck as she cries out. This time it's her turn to speak and she says things to him that I could never have imagined saying, telling him how much she loves him, how she will never leave him, how nothing in the world has ever made her as happy as he does. I may not have ever imagined saying them until this very moment, but I suddenly know that they're true.

I barely see the light this time before I realize that we're back in my living room, during the too bright day. Claudine releases my hand for the first time since she took it and gently kisses my forehead.

"This is all I can do for you, Sookie. The choice is yours, but I thought you deserved to know how it could be for you, either way." With that, she kisses my forehead and suddenly I am awake.

Looking around, I realize that it's still night out. I look down and see that my bullet wound is completely healed, but the bloody mess that is my shirt and jacket are still hanging raggedly off my body.

Did any of that really happen? Was any of it real? I don't know, but the feelings it spurred inside me are. I can feel the turmoil and the upheaval as though they're a physical entity. Before I can think any further though, I see Bill come into the room with a glass of water for me.

I look at him as he hands it to me, my dark haired first love. Something inside me that had been cold and hard suddenly melts. He really does love me, even for all his bad mistakes. Somehow I needed, for my own sanity, to know that.

I remember my dream of not moments before and I'm hit by a realization: it doesn't matter if it was real or not, if Claudine gave me a vision or if my overactive imagination just went into sixth gear with all the Vampire blood I have rushing through my veins. Whether someone was trying to give me an epiphany or I just happened to have one on my own, the result is the same.

I care for Bill a great deal and I always will. I needed to know that he loved me, even if the truth is that I no longer love him in that way. I know now that I could go back to him and that he would love me, he would care for me and treat me like a princess.

And that's the problem. I don't want to be locked in a tower, a beautiful bird in a golden cage, petted, adored, coddled and spoiled, but ultimately never treated as an equal. I don't want to live the life of public first lady, but never have the chance to be completely part of my husband's world.

Bill might have learned not to have thugs beat me within an inch of my life to give me blood, but he will never change who he is: a man deeply at war with his nature, who loves me for humanity that's lost to him and will never want me to be anything more. He will never open himself completely to me, he will never share all of himself, the good and the bad. It's just not who he is.

And I am more. I'm more than a toy, I'm more than a little wife, and I'm more than Human. But no matter what he feels for me, I will never have the chance to be my full self with this man.

Eric can be cold, he can be dark, he can be manipulative. But I've seen him, the real him, be gentle, loyal, devoted and kind, and I've seen him put me and my life above his own more than once. But he also never tried to stop me from fighting for what I believed in, from saying what I felt, or from being myself, my WHOLE self.

Would life with him be the idyllic, country home photograph that it would be with Bill? No, it will be hard, it will be frustrating and it will probably be dangerous. But it will be real, I will be real, and I'll have beside me a man who wants me for everything I am, not just the part that suits him best.

This moment feels so strange. Shouldn't you realize that you're deeply, irrevocably in love someone when they're standing right in front of you? When you can leap into their arms and tell them exactly how you feel without wasting another moment? If I could, I would turn back the clock to that night that Eric and I first made love and I would promise him in no uncertain terms that I will love him, without his memories, with his memories, always and forever, without doubt or fear or regret. But he isn't here, Marnie has him and god knows what she's doing to him, or making him do to others!

I look up at Bill, whose face is so filled with hope and love, and I say the only thing that I can.

"We need to find Eric!"


	2. Chapter 2

_**A/N:**__ Hi! So I have to say that I honestly had no intention of continuing this story, but there were so many wonderful reviewers who asked if I would- especially 88spike (you have her to thank for all of this)- that I thought I would give it a shot. I'm nervous because I have zero in the way of a plan for this story- and I've never written without a net, so to speak, before- but I'm going to give it a shot. I don't think this will turn out to be a very long story, but I'm pretty sure, if things continue going as they are, there will be enough sour moments in the last two episodes to give me somewhere to go on the way to: Antonia defeated, and Sookie and the Real Eric happy and together! _

_Thank you, thank you to those that reviewed the first chapter and put it in their favorites, I was completely blown away! I hope that you like chapter 2. It's shorter, but of course there will be more._

_I just have to shout out my awesome beta- Sheknitsnicely! Thank you for taking on another story with me! I know I said "would you beta my one-shot" and then this happened, so all I can say is: I love you more than life itself! YOU ROCK MY WORLD!_

_**Disclaimer:**__ yeah like I said before, I don't own them, cause if I did there would be no reason for this story! Sookie and Eric would have been doing the horizontal mambo over Bill's goopy remains way back in season 1!_

Okay, taking Claudine's hand and letting her take me on a little joy ride to my possible futures was yesterday. So that means that trusting Debbie Pelt- jealous, unstable girlfriend and possibly psychotic former V addict with a totally unwarranted grudge against me- can still be my dumbest decision for today, hands down…without any contest.

Even though I know this could end really badly, I already know that I'm gonna do it before the words are out of my mouth. I've spent all damn day pacing my house, worried out of my skull for Eric, trying to tell myself that he isn't going to end up finally dead before I can find him and tell him how much I love him, and how sorry I am for being a total moron: now, before, and pretty much since I met him.

Debbie just smiles in this super relieved manner that does absolutely nothing to instill confidence in me and then we're hurrying to her truck and racing off to Marnie's store at a speed I'm sure will either get us killed or at least pulled over and put in jail for the night.

When we get there, Debbie heads to the front door, hoping to find a way to distract Marnie while I sneak in from the back. I do a quick mental scan of the place while I'm searching for a back entrance or an open window and I almost start to jump up and down and squeal like a little girl when I feel the presence of a void inside the store. It's Eric! It has to be Eric! Please God, let it be Eric!

Tripping and falling through the window was probably about as far from ninja as you can get, but I'm above being picky at this point and I'm just glad that it seems I've managed to get in without making too much noise. I can still hear the sleeping brains of the people that are here and the whispers that must be Debbie distracting Marnie, so I don't worry too much about being graceless and instead open my mind and try to pinpoint the void.

Running as quickly and as quietly as I can, I make my way across the floor and open the door with the light under it, where I can hear the steady hum of a Vampire brain on the other side. My heart nearly bursts when I see Eric standing as still as a statue on the other side. He's here! He's safe! Oh, thank you Jesus! Running over to him I wrap my arms around him, whispering his name and trying to get him to move.

"Sookie." He responds, looking down at me for a moment with a glassy, vacant stare.

"Eric, c'mon, let's get you out of here!" I whisper again, urgently, but he doesn't budge even an inch and I start to feel a little snake of panic coiling in my stomach, knowing that I have absolutely no chance of moving him without his help.

"You should go." Is his only response. His voice is just as vacant as his eyes.

"You're under her spell, aren't you?" I ask. I can hear that Debbie isn't getting anywhere with Marnie, and I can tell from her mind that she's running out of reasons to keep talking and starting to panic. If we don't get moving real soon we're going to be in all sorts of horse puck. "What is she making you do?" I ask, hoping like hell Eric is in there enough to be able to tell me.

"Kill the King." He answers me, and while I'm betting it's a thought that's crossed his mind more than once in the time I've known him, I never imagined Eric saying it with as little excitement as he does now.

"Damn it Sook. How fucking stupid can you be?" Turning around I'm startled to find Tara standing there holding a gun on us.

"Tara, please…" I start, but she cuts me off.

"I hope you're listening to me!" She answers back, making a head motion towards Marnie. I suddenly realize what she wants me to do and I open my mind again so that I can hear what she isn't saying.

"_We're being held hostage. You have to help us, Sook!"_ Comes from her mind, but it's too late. Marnie suddenly stops speaking to Debbie and must see Tara holding the gun.

"What's going on over there?" She yells over to Tara, causing the others in the room to wake up. I can hear Tara cussing inside her head. Turning to Eric, I take hold of his arms, trying to shake him.

"Eric, please, please snap out of it! I need your help here!" I whisper/yell at him. He looks down at me, completely puzzled, and I can tell that he's trying hard to fight whatever Marnie has done to him, but I' not sure if it's working.

"Come out of the bathroom, slowly." Tara orders me, and I know that I have no choice but to do as she asks. Walking out into the room, I turn to Marnie and look at her. She's still by Debbie, but I know that she's only moments away from coming over here and unleashing something I'm really not gonna like.

"Kill her, Tara." Marnie says, a cold smile on her face. Tara looks between the two of us and I know that she has no idea how to get out of this. It turns out she doesn't get the chance to decide.

Whatever spell Marnie has Eric under right now, her order to shoot me seems to break through the fog around his brain.

"No!" He says, with more emotion than I've heard from him the entire time I've been here. Suddenly he starts advancing on Tara. Tara sees him and her hands start to shake. I know that she's going to shoot him if I don't do something.

The only thing running through my mind right now is a steady chant of "oh God, oh God, oh God." I feel my hands start to spark and look down at them, bewildered, for all of a half second. I don't know what to do! I don't want to hurt Eric, I can't hurt him! But I can't let him rip Tara's throat out either. Without really thinking about it, I throw up my hands and let my light go. My eyes are clenched shut the entire time, my mind goes from repeating "oh God" over and over to "please don't let me hurt him, please don't let me hurt him."

At that point all hell breaks loose. Eric falls to his knees, hit hard by my light, and Tara, like a total pro, pivots ever so slightly and fires, the bullet from her gun hitting Marnie square in the stomach.

Marnie gives a deafening roar of pain and falls to the floor. But just when I'm about to let out my breath, thinking it's all over, she starts to glow. Whatever was inside of her visibly leaves her body. The person, the spirit inside of her is screaming with rage. We all just stand there, terrified and helpless, as the spirit looks over each one of us with horrifying eyes and then picks its target, shooting itself into Debbie's open, screaming mouth as she tries to flatten herself against the closed door, trying to put distance between herself and the unbelievable thing that's happening in front of her. Tara holds up her gun and waves it at Debbie/Antonia.

"Get out of her, or I'll do it again!" She yells. I can tell from Tara's head that she absolutely doesn't mean it. She's completely terrified that Antonia will call her bluff and, while she might be okay with shooting Debbie, she's terrified she won't be as willing with Antonia's next choice.

Before we can find out though Eric seems to come back to himself and rises up from the floor, stalking towards Debbie/Antonia with his fangs down. I can't tell if he saw what just happened, but it's clear that he understands Debbie is the threat right now. Debbie holds up her hands and starts chanting in Latin, trying to get Eric back under her control, but it doesn't work. Whatever I did to him, he seems to be beyond her power now.

Realizing that she no longer has any magical control over the thousand year old expert killer who's prowling over to her with a hungry look in his eyes and saliva dripping from his fangs, Debbie/Antonia turns, quickly unlocking the door, and runs, getting in Debbie's truck and driving away.

Once Debbie's gone, the tension in the room seems to deflate like a popped balloon. The people who were trapped here start to laugh and cry and hug each other not knowing quite what reaction to have, but totally relieved that they're all alive and free. Tara drops her gun and runs over to me, pulling me into a big hug of her own.

"Oh Sook! Thank God! I thought she was going to kill us all! I'm so sorry!" I hug Tara back and make sure that she knows that I'm not still angry at her for what happened last night. I probably should be- after all, she tried to kill the man I used to love and the man I _do_ love- but we all almost just died, again, so I think for now I'll just shelve the angst and hug her back!

Letting Tara go after a minute and gently pushing past her, I rush to Eric who's standing stock still at the door, his back to all of us, just staring outside the window of the store.

"Eric?" I ask tentatively, hoping like hell that he's alright. I haven't ever killed anyone, or even permanently damaged anyone that I've shot with my light, but it would just be my luck if the one time it actually turns lethal is the one time I'm forced to use it on someone I love. The someone I love the most.

Eric turns around at the sound of my voice and looks at me with such intensity that I stop dead in my tracks. It's not the vacant stare from before though, and I'm ridiculously hopeful that whatever happened when I hit him managed to completely break the zombie whammy that Marnie had put on him.

"Sookie?" He says in a quiet, almost confused voice.

"Oh Eric!" I say, sounding totally stupid but not caring one darn bit. I run the last few steps to him and throw my arms around his neck. Eric seems stunned for one more second, but then I feel his big, strong arms wrap around me, and he lifts me up off the floor, holding me tight to him. "I'm so glad you're alright. I'm so sorry. I didn't hurt you, did I? I didn't know what else to do? You're alright, right?" I say in a rush. Eric hugs me tighter and even laughs a little.

"I'm fine Sookie, you broke her spell, that's all. Thank you!" He says, and even places a sweet kiss on my cheek. Oh thank God, he's my Eric again! I turn before he finishes, putting my lips on his, and I feel him smile into my lips before he returns my kiss with all his might. I'm so happy I could laugh from it, until I remember that Antonia is still out there, in her brand spanking new body and probably heading to Bill right now, to do what she planned before we can stop her.

"Eric," I say urgently into his mouth, "Eric, you have to stop. We have to find Antonia." I say, pulling away just enough so that I can see his face.

"Tara shot her." He responds, gesturing over to the very dead body of Marnie, which is bleeding out onto the floor as we speak. Yep, he missed that part.

"No honey, _Marnie's_ dead…really dead." I say, my nose crinkling in disgust, even as I see Eric sniffing the air, taking in the scent of fresh blood with a satisfied air. "But Antonia's still here, she…she took Debbie over!" Eric just looks at me with another puzzled expression on his face, but only for a second.

"The Were bitch?" He asks.

"Eric!" I say, astonished that my Eric would say something like that.

"What? That's what she is." He says matter-of-factly, shrugging his shoulders. His tone of voice and his expression are so like the real Eric that for a moment I rear back a little, or as much as I can when I'm still being held a foot off the floor by a gigantic Viking.

"Whatever," I say, some of my annoyance slipping into my voice. "Yes, Antonia is in Debbie now, and I'd bet my house, she's going straight to the tolerance night to kill Bill. We have to stop her!" I say emphatically. I may have realized that I'm not in love with Bill anymore, but I still love him, and there is no way that I'm going to let that evil monster kill him.

"It's my house, lover." Eric says, with another strangely familiar smirk on his face. I wiggle in his arms and he gets the message pretty quickly and puts me back on my feet.

"Even better," I reply sarcastically, "I'd bet _your _house she's going straight to kill Bill!" I don't wait to hear his reply, turning instead to the others in the room, only to see that they've been watching us pretty intently. "Please, we can't do this alone! You have to help us?" One of the "witches" steps forward- an ugly guy with a scruffy beard and long straggly hair.

"No way! Marnie might have been crazy, but there is no way that we're gonna actually help out these fuckin' Vamps!" He spits at me, and I can see some of the others nodding their heads in agreement. I'm so frustrated right now that I can barely restrain the desire to fist my hands and stamp my foot on the ground.

"Look there are going to be a lot of Humans at this thing too, and if Antonia starts a blood bath they're going to get hurt too!" I say, trying to make them see. Tara suddenly turns around and faces the others.

"We gotta help. Antonia is a threat to us all. Do you think for one second she isn't going to come after all of us after she finishes with the Vamps? We're all dead if we don't do something to help stop her." Whether what Tara is saying is true or not, it seems that the mere threat of Antonia's wrath is enough to mobilize the others.

"Good!" I say, feeling relieved until I realize that I have no idea how we're going to get across town in time. "How do we get there?" I ask, feeling a little less confident suddenly.

"We have our cars here." Holly pipes up.

"Then take a few of them and hurry to the hotel." Eric says, taking charge all of the sudden. The confidence in his voice is unmistakable and the others start to hurry, rushing out of the emporium and to their cars. They decide quickly on three cars, and they all pile in. I'm just about to run over to them when Eric takes my arm stopping me.

"No Sookie, it will take them some time to get across town. You and I have a faster alternative." He says confidently. I turn back to him and, before I can even ask, he pulls me into his arms again. At first I think that he's going to kiss me, but he only wraps them tightly around my middle and suddenly we're thirty feet off the ground.

"Holy S! You can fly?" I say, completely startled and totally frightened all at once. Eric only nods his head and keeps looking forward, his eyes on where we're going. I can't say I'm unhappy about that, but it doesn't seem to keep me from shooting my mouth off again. "I know we haven't done an awful lot of talking in the last week, but this is something you might have wanted to mention!" I say a little indignantly. Eric just smiles a little bashfully and looks down at me, that stubborn, beautiful strand of hair flopping in front of his eyes, in that way that makes me week kneed and totally distracted.

"I would have, but I kind of didn't remember that I_ could_ until about ten minutes ago." He replies. Suddenly it hits me: why his expressions and mannerisms have looked so familiar since I hit him with my light.

"Oh my God…you remember!"


	3. Chapter 3

_**A/N:**__ Hi. I figured out another chapter! Yeah! So last chapter I played with a scene from ep. 9. I did that again in this chapter with a couple of scenes from ep. 10. But I'm thinking that this is probably the last time I'm going to be able to get away with that, since 11 was a wasteland and at this point I've also changed enough things that I can't really tag along with Alan Ball anymore. So I guess next chapter I'll have to start actually getting creative. But for the moment, I decided to exorcise my "Burning Down the House" demons. I hope you like! _

_Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, or put this story on alert, it really, really means a lot to me! _

_**Disclaimer: **__Again,____I don't own them. If I did there would be no reason for this story. Sookie would have been sucking way more than bullets out of Eric back in Dallas!_

Eric and I don't do much more talking on the flight across town. I'm not sure if that's because I'm in a little bit of shock right now or just because the flight isn't exactly a long one: he's fast!

When Eric puts us back down on the ground in the parking lot, we see Debbie's car illegally parked in the handicapped spot in front of the hotel. He puts his hand under my chin to get my attention back on him and grimaces slightly. I can already tell that there are about a million things he'd rather be doing right now instead of saving Bill's butt: hopefully at least some of those things involve me.

"It appears that whatever you did has rendered me immune to Antonia's magic. Since that is the case, I will go in search of her. You go to the ballroom and do whatever is needed to alert Bill of the danger." He says matter-of-factly. I nod my head, but when Eric tries to turn and walk into the hotel, I grab his hand back.

"Eric…" I start, but then don't know how to finish. There is so much I want to say to him, so much that I need to tell him before we go in there and put our lives on the line again. Stuff that I wish I'd been smart enough and brave enough to have figured out and said before, when we had all the time in the world.

Eric seems to sense my anxiety and he smiles the sweetest, most loving smile I can ever remember him giving me (which is saying something, cause amnesia Eric gave me some pretty unbelievably heart melting smiles) and puts one long, cool finger over my half open mouth.

"Hold that thought, Lover." He says, dropping a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose before rushing off.

Realizing that we're running out of time, I turn and run into the hotel after him. I don't see where Eric is heading but I go straight into the ballroom where I can see Bill at the podium laying on the "we're all one world" rhetoric with a rusty trowel.

Everything seems to be going just fine, but that will probably change pretty quickly, so I just do the only thing I can think of to get his attention really quickly. I make a total fool of myself and scream Bill's name at the top of my lungs. Yep, that did it: everyone's looking at me like I'm a lunatic.

"Sookie?" Bill says into the mike, looking as though he can't figure out whether he should be upset or embarrassed. Thanks so much Bill, I'm really feeling so good about my decision to come here and save your un-life right now, butthead!

Before I can say anything else though, all hell breaks loose. Debbie appears on one of the balconies and she's got two of Bill's other sheriffs with her. They kill two of the Human guards standing in front of them by literally putting their hands clear through their middles, sending blood and gore spraying down on the crowd below, who start to scream and stampede for the doors, trampling each other in their rush to get out of the room.

Just then, I see Eric fall from one of the other balconies with Bill's third sheriff, the big black guy, the two of them fighting each other all the way to the ground. When they hit, the sheriff seems momentarily stunned and Eric uses the opportunity to rush over to Bill, almost faster than I can see.

I'm still trying to push my way to Eric and Bill against the sea of frightened, frantic people when I see Bill pull a gun out of nowhere and try to shoot Eric.

"Bill, NO!" I shout, but my voice is lost in the sea of screaming Humans pushing against me and I'm left to watch in horror as Bill fires. Eric doesn't seem in the least bit frightened though: mostly he just looks super annoyed as he dodges the bullet easily and stalks over to kick the gun out of Bill's hand, as though Bill is an obnoxious child waving a toy in Eric's face, and grabs him by the collar of his dress shirt.

"I'm not a zombie anymore, you fucking idiot! If I were you'd already be dead." By then, Bill seems to realize that Eric is back on his side and I've made it a few more feet, but I'm still being crushed by the crowd.

Nodding his head, Bill takes a position next to Eric and they're joined by Nan, the three of them turning and facing the zombie sheriffs that Debbie/Antonia apparently had the time to take over while we were trying to get here.

The fighting is vicious but over quickly, and soon the three zombie sheriffs are nothing but goop on the floor. By this time, the ballroom is empty of everybody except the people unlucky enough to have been trampled or too near the fight, when the doors open and Tara and the witches come rushing in. Realizing that she doesn't have anyone on her side anymore, Debbie/Antonia cusses at us in what I assume is Spanish and then waves her hand, disappearing into thin air.

Eric and Bill seem ready to go after her, when Nan starts yelling orders at Bill to mobilize everyone and help the injured Humans in the room. Bill gives me one long, soulful glance and then does as he's told. I don't have much time to think about it though, because Eric is at my side in the next instant.

"Are you alright?" He says, taking my upper arms in his hands and pulling me close. I just nod my head, smiling up at him. He gives me a relieved look and then, realizing that we won't be getting a moment of privacy here, he demands a cell phone from one of Bill's remaining guards and makes a call that I assume must be to Pam.

Two hours later, Eric and I are sitting in Bill's living room, pretending that we're not listening to Nan chew him out loudly and emasculatingly right across the foyer. It sounds like it might go on for a while yet. Nan just keeps getting louder and louder, and apparently she's still just warming up. I know that now would probably be a good time to close the pocket doors and maybe say some of that stuff that I've been meaning to say to Eric since last night, but I just can't bring myself to do it. Instead I just sit there, staring at my thumbs, which are doing some of the best twiddling they've done in years.

It's not that I don't still want to say those things, I do… I so, so do. It's just that now that I have the chance to, I'm scared. Not of what I feel- what Claudine showed me in my dream, even if it wasn't real, made me see things in a way that I hadn't before, or maybe that I hadn't wanted to before, and I know now that what I felt for Eric all along wasn't just chemistry or fancy or a consequence of his blood- it was real, and I'm probably going to keep feeling it for a long, long time.

What I'm scared of is whether, now that he's back to his old self, Eric will still feel the same way about me. When he had amnesia he told me that he loved me, that he was in love with me, and I know he was. But the old Eric, the real Eric, was always so adamant that he didn't know what love was and that he didn't have or ever want feelings. What if, now that he's himself again, he doesn't love me anymore or he doesn't _want_ to love me anymore?

I love him with all my heart: I know that now and there's no going back from it. But I won't let that love make me into a simpering doormat or one of his endlessly adoring fangbangers, grateful to take whatever scraps of his attention he's willing to give me. I won't accept less than his love and his fidelity. And yet, I'm not sure I'm strong enough to walk away if the only thing he wants me for, now that he's back, is blood and sex.

As I'm letting my fears and insecurities get the better of me, Eric is just staring at the coffee table in front of us, probably trying to process everything that's happened, just like I am. But suddenly, just as Nan is hitting a high note in the other room, he turns to me and levels me with one of those piercing stares that seems to go right through me, as though he's seeing me on a cellular level or something.

"Sookie, why aren't you saying anything?" He finally asks me. I just stare at him for a moment, knowing that I probably look like someone just kicked my dog, or killed my cat. I probably look about as miserable as I did when Rene killed my cat.

"Exactly how much do you remember?" I ask him, even though the answer is pretty obvious.

"I remember everything...us." He answers, and then it's like a light switch goes on for him, and he figures out what my problem is. "Sookie, nothing's changed." He adds hastily.

"Except you!" I manage to get out, even though it sounds more like a sob than any actual words. Oh God, I am not gonna cry! I am NOT gonna cry!

"I haven't changed. I'm just…more. The other Eric is still here." Sure, right.

"Uh-huh." I say brilliantly. Damn it, why did it have to be now? Why did this have to happen tonight? I'm not ready for Eric to tell me that he still wants to jump my bones and all, but that he can never love me again. I want more than anything to have faith that the dream I had was real, and that a hundred years from now I will still be alive and sharing a real and lasting love with this man in front of me. But really, things like that never happen to girls like me.

I'm the kind of girl that thinks she's found true love, only to find out that that love was a total lie and the object of it had been sent by someone else to collect and use her like she's a living bottle of SPF 600. I'm the kind of girl that Human men won't touch with a twenty foot pole. I'm the kind of girl that an entire town nicknamed Crazy Sookie. I'm the kind of girl who gets laughed at and belittled by drunken rednecks cause, even though their life might be for shit, they still think they're better than her! I'm _not_ the kind of girl that gorgeous, brilliant, deeply complicated thousand year old Vampires, who can have (and probably have had) anyone they want, choose to give up their womanizing ways for and make the sole object of their intense and obsessive desires.

"Sookie…" Eric whispers, moving as close to me as he can. "Look at me." Eric's voice is filled with gentle command, pulling me out of my ever more depressing thoughts and trying to compel me to obey him, but I just can't. I can't see it all be over. When Eric realizes that I'm not going to do as he asks, he takes my chin between his fingers and moves my head ever so slightly, so that I'm staring into those intense eyes of his that look exactly like I always imagined the ocean would during a storm. "Can't you see him in my eyes?"

I want to laugh- well, a little more than I want to cry. I want to tell him that I can see everything in his eyes: my life, my future, my happiness, my everything. I want to tell him that, if he'll just please still love me, I'll promise never to be stupid or mean or bitchy to him again. But just as I'm about to pull my head away, I really do look into his eyes and what I see there is so beautiful that the floodgates finally open and I can't hold back the tears anymore. It's my Eric and the real Eric all at the same time. They're both right there and they're both staring at me with…LOVE!

"You…you still want me? You still love me?" I ask through my tears. Eric just smiles again, his hair flopping into his face, and wraps his arms around me.

"With all my heart." He says simply and pulls back just enough to kiss the wetness from my cheeks. My crying suddenly gives way to laughter and I'm pulling him back into me, wrapping my arms around him, burying my face in the crook of his neck and just breathing him in as I try to calm myself. Thank you God! I think to myself and, even though it might be sacrilege of the worst kind, I send up a little prayer of thanks to Claudine too.

Our happy moment is quickly cut short though, when Pam comes barreling through the front door. To be honest, I'm actually a little thankful for her interruption. I really hate crying. Gran always said that only the weak give in to tears. So I let Eric and Pam have their own happy reunion while I get myself back under control.

I'm glad I had a chance to when Bill and Nan finally come out of his office. If Nan could be, she'd probably be red in the face from all the yelling she just did, but instead they both look pretty much normal, just extremely pissed off.

"Fire killed her four hundred years ago and fire will kill her again. We find her, smoke her out, and it's over." Bill says with an exasperated scowl on his face as Eric, Pam and I move to join them in the front hall.

"Blowing her, and whoever happens to be around when we find her, up is not a twenty-first century solution. You're going to fuck our entire agenda up the ass!" Nan bites back at him, before getting on her cell phone and stalking off into the other room, loudly demanding one thing after another from the unfortunate person on the other end.

"God I hate her!" Bill calls after her, practically spitting tacks. It might actually have been a little funny if he didn't decide to turn to me at that moment with a look I'm pretty sure I saw my daddy give Jason a few times when he was raging angry at him. "Would you care to tell me exactly what happened tonight, since I can only assume that- as usual- you were front and center for the mayhem?" I hear Eric growl behind me but I just ignore it, taking a deep breath and trying to make it sound like I didn't just run off half-cocked and nearly get myself killed again.

"I'm sorry Bill, but Eric was in danger. I couldn't just sit around and wait for you to decide that you had the time to find him. Debbie showed up at my door earlier tonight and offered to help me and I couldn't refuse. We went to Moon Goddess and I found Eric while she was distracting Marnie. But before I could get us out Tara found us and she had a gun, and… long story short, I shot Eric with my light and it broke the spell, and Tara shot Marnie with her gun. It killed Marnie but not Antonia and she just went into the nearest body, which happened to be Debbie." Bill has that look on his face again, like a disappointed father who just can't figure out how to get through to a constantly misbehaving child. Only this time it's not making me feel guilty or sorry, it's just pissing me off.

"Don't you give me that look, Bill Compton!" I practically shout at him. "If I hadn't gone to rescue Eric he'd still be a zombie right now and you'd be dead… truly dead…whatever!" I feel Eric coming up behind me and I can almost see the look that must be in his eyes, daring Bill to contradict me.

"Fine. If I accede your point, will you kindly promise me to stay out of this from now on?" Bill says, pinching the bridge of his nose. Apparently having two women scream at him in one night is more than his tender sensibilities can take, because he doesn't even wait for an answer from me: he just looks over my head and starts shouting out orders.

"I've summoned Jessica. We'll silver ourselves for the day and go after Antonia tonight. Pam, Eric, you'll stay here." Bill barks out. Pam gives a satisfied purr and proclaims herself "so in", but, before Bill can get too happy, both Eric and I interject.

"No!" We say at the same time. I turn quickly and take Eric's hand as he joins me on the first step of Bill's stairs. This time I let him do the talking: things always sound so much more final when they come from Eric.

"I will stay at Sookie's for the day and be back here as soon as the sun sets." I'm sure Bill would love to say something to that, but he doesn't get the chance. Eric just turns around, taking me with him, and walks out the door. His only gesture is a little smirk at Pam, who returns it whole heartedly along with a little wave, which I'm very sure has nothing to do with her approving of Eric wanting to spend the day with me, but more than likely has _everything_ to do with wanting to piss Bill off that last little bit.

Once we're out of the house, Eric just looks down at our hands for a good solid moment and smiles as we start to walk the short distance to my house. His smile is beautiful and it makes my heart swell with so much love and happiness that I feel like I'm going to burst. Finally, about halfway across the cemetery, I stop us.

Eric looks like he's about to say something and, even though I know that I'm not frightened anymore that he's going to turn his back on me now that he's himself again, I really need for him not to interrupt me.

"Shut up." I say, startling him. Not my finest moment, but I was raised to be more Scarlet O'Hara than Juliet Capulet. "Eric, I need you to just be quiet and listen to me right now, okay? I need you to be quiet and just don't be sweet and don't be cute." I say, brushing that adorable lock of hair off his forehead so that I won't be distracted by its endearing floppiness. "Don't be smart and try not be sexy, either, for just a minute. Can you do that?" Eric tries mostly successfully to stifle one of those sexy smirks and nods his head with a great deal of seriousness. "Thanks. Listen, the thing is that something happened last night. I got hurt and Bill gave me his blood." Eric looks at me incredulously and I can tell that this was the absolute last thing that he thought I would say.

"He what…?" Eric starts to interrupt me but I put my hand over his mouth.

"I said shut up!" I cut him off. "So I know that I jumped down your throat and blamed you and…everything that I was feeling for you on that one drop of blood. I guess I thought that the second I had more of Bill's blood that I would start having feelings for him again too. To be honest with you, I do love Bill. I hate that I do after everything he's done to me, but I do." Eric looks at me as though I just stomped on his heart and I want to curse myself for going about this so badly. But I'm not going to stop now. "Eric, just hang with me, okay? I'm getting somewhere with all of this, I promise." He doesn't look any happier but he nods and keeps quiet.

"I do love Bill. But Eric, I'm not in love with him and I never will be again. I had this dream, that I don't even know if it was a dream or if it really happened, but it made me really see a whole bunch of things, things that had been rolling around in my head, but that I never quite got worked out before. And the thing is that, when you couldn't remember who you were, you asked me if I would still love you when you got your memories back and I said that I didn't know. Well I do know. Eric, I love you…I'm _in_ love with you: without your memories, with your memories, I don't care! I just want you! And I've been waiting almost two days to tell you that and I just couldn't wait anymore…." I probably would have kept rambling on for hours if he hadn't stopped me, but he did, in the most wonderful way possible. By putting his perfect mouth over mine and kissing me as though we were in a house on fire!

The kiss seemed to last forever and, when we finally parted, I realized that we weren't in the cemetery anymore: we were standing on my front porch! Like I said, the man is fast! From out of nowhere, Mr. Prepared pulls a set of my house keys out of his back pocket and opens the door, walking through and pulling me in after him.

"Did you say everything you needed to say?" Eric asks me once the door is locked safely behind us. I nod my head, looking up at him and waiting to see if he has anything to add. "Good. I think we're done talking for the night then." He says, pulling me back into his arms.

The walk up the stairs is a long one that ends up littered with our clothes. Eric's bloody shirt ends up hanging off the banister, my little sweater is left on one of the stairs, both of our pants lie on the floor in the upstairs hall. Turns out I was the only one wearing underwear but, since Eric ripped it in half instead of taking the time to pull them off, there are still two separate piles of it to pick up later. Gran would have a heart attack if she saw all this, but for the first time in my life I couldn't care less.

We're both naked and breathing hard by the time Eric leads us to our destination, which turns out not to be my bedroom, but the bathroom. Pulling me into the shower with him, he turns on the water and pulls me under the warm spray.

Eric was completely serious when he said we were done talking for the night. Instead, we fill the silence with little sounds of joy and pleasure that eventually turn into the loud sounds of lust and need.

As the water runs down over me in warm rivers, Eric leaves my mouth and lets his cool lips wander over my body. I stand there in front of him, completely frozen, as he lays soft, sucking kisses down the column of my neck and laves his tongue over my collar bones, biting gently at the little hollow where they meet. My eyes close momentarily in pleasure as he kneels down on the shower floor and brings his mouth down to kiss my breasts.

His big hands cup both of them, petting and caressing as he makes sure to bathe every square inch of the small swells with his tongue before finally taking one of my aching nipples in his mouth, sucking and rolling it between his distended fangs and making me cry out as I grip the back of his head, trying as hard as I can to keep him from ever stopping.

My knees are getting weak when he finally breaks free of my hold on his hair and leaves my breasts, heavy and swollen and begging for more, and follows the line of the water down, licking it off my ribs and from the little dip of my navel, and then stopping just above the honey colored curls below.

Eric looks up at me and his eyes tell me everything. He's asking permission. This is him, the real him, the him that I swore I would never let into my bed, that I could never be with as I was with another. Will I let him love me now? Do I accept him as he is? Do I understand that this isn't just a momentary acquiescence? Do I promise to love him, all of him, for as long as we both walk this earth?

My only response is a nod of my head and what I hope are two eyes filled with all the love I have in me to give. Eric smiles as though someone just gifted him the moon and eases my legs farther apart with his hands. One more heavy look passes between us and then, without taking his eyes from mine, he lowers his head between my legs and begins to taste me, shuddering as he takes one long, sweeping lick from my entrance to my clit and back.

He does it over and over again and, by the time he finally takes my nub between his teeth and begins to tease it with his tongue, I'm trembling and shuddering so badly that I have to brace my hands on his shoulders to keep from falling over. I see the smile in Eric's eyes just before he takes one of his hands from my hips and brings it down, entering me with two of his long fingers and curling them forward.

That's all it takes for me to see stars in front of my eyes and come hard, screaming his name, the first actual word that's been said since we entered the house. In another one of his lightning fast movements, Eric stands, his arms wrapping around my waist and lifting me off the floor and up against the shower wall.

Without even thinking about it, my arms wrap around his shoulders and my legs go around his hips. I'm still nearly delirious from the strength of my orgasm, but it doesn't matter. In the short week that we've been together like this, my body has memorized his and it knows exactly what to do, how best to fit itself to his, without the help of my brain.

Eric only waits long enough for me to open my eyes again and then he takes my mouth with his as he pushes into me. This time there's nothing hurried about his movements. Everything seems to slow down to an almost glacial pace as we moan into each other's mouths, enjoying every second of him filling me.

I can feel every single centimeter of him, hard and sure, as he slides into me, and it's like nothing I've ever experienced before. I never, ever knew that it could be like this. I never dreamed that having a man inside me could feel like finding the missing piece of my soul and putting it back where it belonged. I never imagined that sex could make me feel whole: it never did before. But I guess that's because I wasn't having sex with this man.

If there were any doubts left in me about whether or not I could love the real Eric, they would have been obliterated the moment he was fully inside me. If I wasn't feeling an almost overwhelming sense of joy right now, I would probably cry at the thought of how stupid and blind I was. Why did I deny myself this? Why did I try to throw this…this happiness away with both hands? So many times I'd felt like I couldn't shut Eric down, or hurt him with nasty words, fast enough. Why? Why did I try to destroy us before we'd ever even begun?

I didn't have those answers, but then I supposed that I was just lucky enough, for once, to have figured things out before it was too late. Shoving all of that down, I do my best to stay in this moment with him and, given that it's about the best moment I've ever had, that's not too hard.

Eric kisses me over and over again, never letting his lips leave my skin, even when his mouth is forced to leave mine to let me breathe. His pace isn't languid, but it isn't hurried either, it's…perfect and we cry out together as we move under the water, wet and warm, surrounded by the steam of the shower, and completely lost in each other.

When the peak comes into view this time, we're there together and Eric's mouth finally leaves mine so that we can look deep into each other's eyes as we go over together.

I see him- all of him- there, taking this leap of complete faith with me. This is us, this is forever, and I will never turn away from it again!


	4. Chapter 4

_**A/N: **__Yeah- I finally figured out where I'm going with this story! It's nice to have a plan! So here is chapter 4, which turns out to be the calm before the big fight that's gonna happen next._

_On a technical note, I'm going with the premise that once Sookie hit Eric with her light he became immune to Antonia's magic. I didn't really understand in the show how she could break Antonia's hold on Eric's mind in one episode and then in another Antonia was still able to try to compel Eric to walk into the force field thingy around Moon Goddess. So for the purposes of this story we're going presume Eric is not "spell-able" again._

_Okay- thank you to my awesome beta Sheknitsnicely! You are an editing powerhouse! And thank you to everyone who's reviewed, alerted and favorited this story! You Rock my Socks!_

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own them. If I did there would be no reason for this story: Sookie would have thrown Bill's ring in a mud puddle and had passionate, primal sex with Eric right on her front porch at the beginning of season 3!_

"Please…" It comes out as a breathy whisper, but it's loud enough for Eric to hear and this time he doesn't tease or deny me. Instead, he moves just that little bit faster, his kisses become just that tiny bit more frantic, and his hands on my body squeeze and caress just that little bit harder and I end up falling over the edge again, for the…I don't even know what number we're at anymore, but I can confidently say it's well beyond the fifth time.

As I arch into him, Eric follows me, his voice an almost deafening roar in the practically empty, cinder blocked space of the cubby. It's nearly dawn now. It literally took us hours to make it here. I know my house pretty well, even with all the improvements that Eric's made to it, but I have to say that I will gladly take the Eric Northman house tour anytime he'd like to give it to me.

The wall paper in the upstairs hall looks so much more detailed when he's pressing me up against it. The pretty, tiny blue tiles he had put in to decorate my dining room fireplace are entirely more sparkly when examined while being laid out on said dining room's table, and the lovely new hard wood floors seem that much more polished and shiny when they have a naked Viking lying sprawled out on top of them, beckoning me, with open arms and a sexy smirk, to come and ride him.

I don't think I'll ever look at my house the same way again, but I know now that I'll never want to redecorate! As Eric moves to lie beside me, he pulls me into him and I end up happily nuzzled into his chest. It feels a little strange because, when Eric had no memories it seemed as though he preferred to lay on me, but I'm not complaining. Eric is hard and cool and, with his big arms wrapped so tight around me, I feel safer than I've felt in a long, long time. Maybe since my daddy used to come in and give me bear hugs after I had a nightmare as a little girl, or even worse, when I heard other peoples' nightmares.

"It's just a few minutes now till dawn." Eric says, placing gentle kisses in my hair. I nod my head and start to move, letting him know that I want to get up. Eric lets me go, but I can feel his reluctance to, whether because he wishes we could keep cuddling or because he's not keen to spend another sleepless day wrapped in silver, I don't know. In either case, I feel compelled to comfort him and so I kiss his lips gently and then his eyes and then his nose and then his lips again before getting up.

"I'm going to get dressed real quick and then we can…do this." I say, motioning to the pile of silver lying in the corner of the room. Eric only nods and lets out a very human sounding sigh.

I hurry upstairs and decide that it's not worth getting dressed, since anything I put on will only get bloody and ruined by the time the sun sets in another ten hours. Instead I go over to the box of my clothes that I pulled down from the attic and rummage till I find an old, baby pink nightgown.

I choose it because there's absolutely nothing special about it. It's just a plain pink cotton nightgown, with little short sleeves and prudy little pearl buttons at the fake collar that don't really unbutton, and I figure it's perfect because I won't mind destroying it today. But when I look in the mirror, I can't help the wicked little smile that stretches across my face as I see that my plain, prudish pink nightgown has been washed so many times over the years that the material has become nearly paper thin and now it's all but see through, especially around my nipples, which are clearly visible through the old, lighter colored cotton.

When I get back down to the cubby, I hear the sound of Eric's fangs snicking down before I even turn to face him and, when he sees the little night gown from the front, he lets out a groan that sounds almost as pained as if I'd already put silver on him. I guess the consensus is that I made a good choice!

Eric's pulled on his black and silver track shorts but nothing else and, as I start to put the chains on him, I decide to make idle conversation in the hopes of distracting him from the pain.

"When did you go back out to the woods for those?" I ask, figuring a conversation about shorts won't really tax him too much while he's trying to deal with the burning.

"Ahhhh…after you fell asleep that night. I…ahh…didn't want you to have to replace them. Where did they come from anyway?" He asks after a moment. I think about it for a second and then shrug my shoulders.

"To be honest, I'm not one hundred percent sure. I think they're Hoyt's. He used to sleep over here a lot after football practice when he and Jason where still in high school. He must have left them here. I found them in a box of Jason's old stuff in the attic, but I'm sure they're not Jason's."

When we get to the point where I have to put the silver around Eric's neck, all conversation stops. Eric just looks at me with that expression that tells me he'd rather drain a dead cat than actually have to do this, but I meant what I said before. I've lost too many people I love, I am _not_ losing him!

Once the chains are in place, I lay down beside him just like I did before, and Eric snuggles into me as best he can. We're silent for a long while, but it's killing me to feel how much pain he's in. It's rolling off him in waves I feel like I can almost see, even though he refuses to make a single sound.

"I'm so sorry, honey. I hate seeing you hurting like this. I wish there was anything that I could do." I say, kissing him gently. Eric looks up at me and gives me one of those smiles that I'm becoming positively addicted to: this one has a great deal of fang to it, and I'm startled to realize that, even though it makes his smile look a little less innocent, it doesn't change how beautiful it is in the least.

"Just keep talking to me, it helps distract me." Eric answers through clenched teeth. I know that it would probably be better to keep talking about silly things like mysteriously appearing track shorts, but I just can't help the next question that falls out of my mouth.

"What's going to happen tonight?" My voice is just a whisper again, but this time it's out of fear.

"Pam, Bill, Jessica and I will track Antonia and kill her." He says matter-of-factly, but I can tell that something about it is bothering him. To be honest, something about it is bothering me too.

"You don't sound like you think that's a very good idea." I prompt him. Eric picks that moment to look into my eyes and I can see the bloodlust all but boiling over in him. I guess I was more right than I knew when I said that he never backed down from a fight.

"I think killing Antonia is an excellent idea. I simply don't like Bill's plan to make that happen." He says, grimacing slightly against the silver.

"Why?" It might be weird to be sitting here with a silver chained Vampire talking about murdering a possessed Werewolf that's being inhabited by an already dead witch…yeah, it's probably weird… but my life has been crazy enough in the last couple of years that I don't really give that aspect of our conversation much thought. I'm just giddy to be getting a look into the very complicated workings of Eric's mind.

"I am not exactly confident in the ability of four Vampires to overpower a necromancing witch when only one of us is immune to her magic. If I were Antonia, I would have Pam attack me outright, since she already knows of our relationship and she will no doubt be aware that, of any of them, I would have the most…regret… about damaging her. Then I would order the other two to attempt to stake me while I was distracted. Once I am gone, there is nothing to stop her from making Pam, Jessica and Bill simply turn on each other, or fall on a few pieces of well placed wood. The odds are at least even at this point, if not already tipped in her favor." Eric is making perfect sense and I can only wonder why this hasn't dawned on Bill yet.

"Well…aren't there any other Vampires? I mean, if Bill's King and you're Sheriff, where are all your subjects?" I ask, realizing that, other than the zombie Sheriffs Antonia took over earlier tonight, I haven't seen any other Vampires in Louisiana at all besides Eric, Pam, Bill and Jessica, since Bill's friends from Monroe where killed.

"Bill has ordered them all to flee the state for the time being, but that hardly matters. Bringing more Vampires into this would only give Antonia more pairs of hands to control. Unless of course you can hit them with your light." Eric looks up at me with a little ray of hope in his eyes and I hate having to kill it.

"Sorry honey, it doesn't seem to work that way. It seems like it only happens when I or someone I love is in immediate danger." Eric's face takes on a deeply puzzled expression at that, as though he's trying to work out a particularly hard math problem.

"But it worked in the parking lot of Fangtasia when you separated me from Russell." My only answer to that is a raised eyebrow and what I hope is a significant stare.

"Russell called you 'my precious Viking' that day. It's funny that neither of us really caught on to something that was apparently obvious to a total lunatic." Eric tries to laugh at that, but it causes the silver to rub up against him more and so it ends up coming out more as a pained moan.

"I'd caught on for a while by then, lover." He says, easing the pain by rubbing his face into my hair and breathing me in.

"What on earth are you talking about?" I say, lifting up slightly so that I can stare down into his eyes. They go very soft at that question, and I can see so much love in them.

"I've known since Dallas that I was in love with you." I'm so totally shocked by that confession that I just blurt out the first thing that comes into my head.

"Shut the fuck up!" That gets another laugh/grimace/moan out of Eric and I don't know whether to apologize for cussing or for making him laugh. "Honestly though Eric, how can you expect me to believe that? When you barged your way into my house not even two whole weeks ago, it wasn't your heart that you were offering me." I say matter-of-factly, but then regret it.

Eric's eyes, which have been so soft and open all night, so filled with love and gentleness, suddenly go small and hard. It's a look I've seen on him so many times before, but I never really realized what it meant. It's the look of an ancient Vampire stifling anything that even remotely resembles feelings or vulnerability or weakness under a thousand years of armor.

As I watch though, something happens that never has before. Eric looks at the wall, the hard, closed off expression still on his face, and then he takes one long, unnecessary breath, and I see my Eric start to come back. It's extraordinary, and I realize now that my Eric wasn't a stranger, but rather he's what lays underneath so many centuries of practiced, willful detachment, and I want to kiss Eric over and over and tell him how grateful I am that he would shed his armor for me, and that I promise not to doubt his truthfulness again. Because I know that the only reason he's even attempting to fight his instincts is because of me, and because of the future we're trying to build here together.

"I haven't felt love in a long time, Sookie…maybe never before you. I didn't know what it was that I was feeling in the beginning. I knew I didn't like feeling it, but that doesn't change the fact that I did.

But I also knew that you didn't love me, and I didn't think that entreating you with the heart you believed I didn't possess would get me anywhere. I came offering something as unromantic as protection because I thought appealing to your sense of practicality would get me the farthest." His words just about break my heart for a moment, until they make me mad.

"You would have taken me without love? Just to have me? Why? What would it have meant to either of us if I didn't love you back?" I'm back to feeling heartbroken as Eric levels me with the most gut wrenching gaze I have ever seen. Not even Bill's puppy dog eyes can compare to this.

"I would have taken you any way that you would have given yourself to me. I would have taken as much or as little as you offered, because having any part of you, even the smallest part, was preferable to not having you at all." God damn these silver chains! All I want to do right now is throw myself on top of Eric and…well…fuck him until neither of us can think straight! What other response is there to a confession like that?

All this time, I've been such a complete fool. All this time this man, this love was waiting for me, and I did what? Threw Bill in his face, insulted him at every turn, accused him of wanting to add me to his collection of willing fangbangers, belittled him by insinuating that he would lose control and accidentally drain me. God, what an effing moron I've been!

My options are limited right now, but since there are absolutely no words that can possibly express to Eric how much I love him in this instant, I just do what feels right. I carefully straddle his waist, making sure to stay well above the chains around his hips, and I lean down, taking his face in my hands and kiss him for all I'm worth, letting my tongue sweep into his mouth and curl around his fangs, tasting every part of him as my hands run through his hair, holding him there, pressed up against my mouth, until I have to break away to breathe.

"You have all of me now, Eric. I swear it." I say, after taking a few gasping breaths of air. It might be the oxygen deprivation or it might be that fantastic kiss or it might be the fact that Eric just told me he's been in love with me for ages, but it's like a little light bulb goes off on top of my head in that moment.

"What about the Werewolves?" I ask, suddenly. Eric goes from looking dreamily satisfied to snorting derisively in six seconds flat.

"They do not wish to become involved in a Vampire matter. You know how it is, we don't mix." Eric talks about the wolves as though they're the lowest scum on the planet. We'll have to tackle that prejudice later. Right now, though, we don't have the time for Eric to be picky.

"Yeah, well that was before, now your Vampire problem is sitting in a Werewolf body. It's only pure luck that Nan was able to get all the video tape from last night. If anything manages to get out, there is a good chance that the wolves could be outed. I'd say that they have a pretty good incentive for getting involved in the 'matter' now." From derisive snort to admiring adoration in five seconds flat! If we weren't both covered in Eric's blood and exhausted right now, I'd be doing a little victory dance! I just shocked Eric… in a good way!

"Have I mentioned that your mind is one of the things I love most about you?" Eric says, smiling like a loon. I'm so proud of myself right now (and maybe just a little bit loopy from sleep deprivation) that I just cock my eyebrow in a really fake seductive kind of way and run my hands over my torso, batting my eyes as I go.

"And I thought this was the reason you loved me." I say, all fake breathy. Eric laughs and it's very breathy but not at all fake, and I can see his fangs glistening just a little bit.

"No, that's the reason I want to fuck you." He deadpans. "But your mind and your ever forgiving, ever caring heart are the reasons why I love you." Okay, I'm total mush right now. Eric doesn't let me melt to the floor just yet though. "Do you play chess?" He asks, seeming to change the topic really suddenly.

"No." I answer, a little startled by the one eighty in our conversation but willing to go with it. "I always wanted to learn but there wasn't anyone to teach me. Folks round here don't tend to like to play anything that doesn't include punishing a ball in some way. Besides, I gave up on games a long time ago. It's really hard to win fair and square when you know exactly what your opponent is thinking." Eric nods his head solemnly.

"Since we do not have that problem, I would be happy to teach you if you'd like. You would be magnificent at it: you have a warrior's mind." Okay, now I'm melting to the floor.

"I'd like that a lot. What about the witches?" I ask, switching gears on us again.

"From what I saw, the lot of them are useless: small Humans wishing they could be big, nothing more. But your friend Lafayette and his partner, they might be able to help. Of all of them, I believe Lafayette is probably the only one with talent." That gets the first puzzled look of the conversation out of me.

"Really? I had no idea!" Eric nods his head and stares off at the wall again. I can almost hear the gears in his brain turning.

"He was there when Marnie cursed me and I believe that it was him who first attracted Antonia's attention. Marnie and her pathetic little group were doing a great deal of chanting nonsense, but it wasn't until Tara tried to shoot me and I grabbed her that Lafayette joined the circle and Antonia was somehow summoned. Pam tells me that he was also present when Marnie successfully cursed her. So perhaps there is more to your friend than simply a unique sense of fashion and a great deal of charisma."

"Eric, do you think that you'll be okay down here for a little bit?" I ask him. He nods his head, probably already knowing where I'm going with all of this.

"Okay I'm going to run upstairs and call Alcide and see if he can find Debbie and hopefully convince his pack master that the wolves need to help out on this, and then I'm going to call Lafayette and Jesus and see if they can do anything to help us out too." Eric smiles wide and true at me and I'm, again, utterly lost in the feeling of happiness that comes from having made him proud of me.

"I'll be fine here, but once you're done…will you come back?" He asks the last with a little bit of self-conscious hesitation as though, now that he's the big bad Sheriff again, he shouldn't admit to wanting something as silly as his girlfriend beside him to comfort him while he's in pain. I bend down and kiss him hard one last time before getting up and walking over to the ladder.

"If you got cell phone reception down here, I'd never leave!"


	5. Chapter 5

_**A/N: **__ Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who's been reviewing this story, put it on alert or in their favorites! I'm really so touched that y'all are enjoying! And of course I have to thank my awesome beta- Sheknitsnicely- girl you ROCK!_

_**Disclaimer: **__I don't own them. If I did there would be no reason for this story: Sookie would have woken up from her first dream about Eric, looked over at Bill, said "ewww!", and hightailed it across the hall for some real lovin': Viking style!_

Fifteen minutes before sundown Eric finally calls Uncle and I start taking off the chains. Just like the last time Eric screams and roars and probably calls me every name in the book (although I can't understand a word he's saying) and then looks immediately contrite as soon as the chain I'm working on is off. It's almost cute, in a super messed up kind of way. When we get to the chain on his neck again, I pause giving him a heavy look.

"Remind me again why this was necessary if you're so positive that you're immune to Antonia's magic?" I ask. I know I was all for this at dawn, but now that I actually have to watch chunks of Eric coming off with the chains, knowing that Antonia's spell didn't even come this time, I'm feeling a little bit differently about the whole thing…hindsight and all, I guess.

"I said I was _almost _positive that I'm immune to her magic." He counters, giving me a look that can only be translated as 'get the fuck on with it'. I take the chain in my hand but stop before ripping it off.

"Almost positive, so like what, ninety-eight, ninety-nine percent sure?" I counter. Eric puts his hand over mine on top of the chain.

"Ninety-nine percent." He answers, before making both of our hands rip the silver off. "AHHHHHHHHHH" Eric screams out, along with what I'm sure is probably the worst cuss of all.

"So we did all of this for what… a one percent chance?" I continue to argue with him once I've dropped the bloody, chunky mess onto the floor, wiping my hands on my completely ruined nightgown.

"You don't live a thousand years by taking even the most minute chances with your survival, Sookie." Eric's voice is breathless and pained, but it doesn't stop him from leveling me with one of those drilling stares, almost as if he's trying to imprint a lesson on me for the future.

"That didn't stop you from taking a chance when you went after Antonia at the hotel last night." I point out. Eric just grimaces and begins sitting up very slowly.

"That wasn't a chance, that was a calculated risk." I just snort at that, but it dies off pretty quickly when I feel Eric's hand go into my hair, pushing it back and exposing my neck.

"There's a difference?" His fingers start to pet my pulse and suddenly I really don't give a dang what we're talking about.

"Yes, one has purpose, the other does not. I risked the possibility that I was wrong last night to help you save Bill. I am not chancing that I am incorrect when the end result will be my toasting in the sun for no reason." Yeah, I guess that makes a strange sort of sense. Again, I'm hardly caring about our conversation right now, but something keeps me arguing, just for the possibility of scoring a point. My Gran would have called that the Stackhouse gene.

"Your purpose in life is to save Bill now?" I laugh just a little at the irony of that thought. But Eric doesn't. He pulls back and stares me in the eye, forcing me to see the sincerity of his next statement.

"I care nothing about Bill Compton. I did it for you. I take it that it is still your wish that dear King Bill continue to exist?" I nod my head emphatically.

"Of course it is." I say, although right at this particular moment, I'm really more interested in how the little gold flecks in Eric's eyes seem to dance even in this harsh light down here.

"Then stop trying to make me question the conviction of my motives." He smiles just a little bit at that and then kisses my nose gently. "May I?" My breath literally catches in my throat at his question and I'm reminded of that night that Eric came barging into my house trying to make me agree to be his. He told me then that he could force me if he wanted to, but that instead he'd chosen to ask. And here he is now, knowing that I'm completely and utterly his and that, in his world, that means never having to ask again, but he still does. God I love this man!

"Please." Is all I say, before Eric kisses his way from my jaw down to the throbbing point just below my ear. My only warning before he bites is the snicking sound, but it doesn't matter: his bite is so gentle and tender that, even though his fangs are huge and razor sharp, it feels like nothing more than a tiny pin prick. And then it feels like pure, unadulterated sex as he starts pulling at the wounds, making those deep growls that signal that he's incredibly happy in a way that only a Vampire can be, and begins to run his hands over my bloody nightgown.

I want to tell him that we just don't have the time for what he's starting, but then his hands succeed in getting under my little shirt and one holds my hip in place, his thumb caressing it softly, and the other reaches up and begins to play with my breasts, petting them and softly pinching my nipples, making me squirm to get closer to him.

Putting one of my hands on the back of his head, into his beautiful golden hair, I let the other start to run up and down the hard plains of his chest, feeling the muscle and bone beneath his beautiful pale skin and completely forgetting that we need to be anywhere else but here.

Eric begins to lick the little wounds on my neck and I feel a wetness that's thicker than saliva and know that he's pricked his tongue and is healing my marks. I'm just starting to let my hands wander along the waistband of his shorts when the sound of the doorbell startles us. Eric pulls away with a heavy, put upon sigh and stands up, offering me his hand to help me up too.

"People seem to call at your house with an alarming frequency when I'm trying to have my way with you." He says, sounding slightly exasperated. I just stand up and kiss his chest quickly, before making my way to the cubby ladder.

"We have a witch to defeat tonight!" I say, hoping to distract his plain old lust with a little well placed blood lust. "Once we do that, you can have your way with me till the cows come home." That gets a raised eyebrow from him, but then he must realize it's a figure of speech and that I don't actually own cows, and he just nods, a dirty little smirk crossing his face.

"You have a bargain, lover." He says, starting to climb the ladder himself and no doubt enjoying the view from under my nightgown.

Lafayette and Jesus are waiting at the door when we make it up, holding a little urn thingy in their hands. Lafayette looks a little sick when he sees Eric behind me, but he doesn't run away screaming so I guess that's a good start. Although getting my best friend to forgive my new boyfriend for locking him in a dungeon and torturing him for days on end, might require a little more work.

"We think we found a solution." Jesus says, after an uncomfortably long two minutes in which everyone just stares at each other.

"We'll just get dressed and then we can head on over to Bill's." I say. I feel terrible not inviting them in, but somehow I think Lafayette feels safer without any walls standing between him and the illusion that he can just take off and run if being in Eric's presence becomes too frightening. Yep, this is definitely going to take some work. Hopefully killing Antonia together will be like a bonding experience for them or something. God my life is messed up!

I change real quick into something black and form fitting and Eric re-emerges from the cubby with his purple, sleeveless hoody in place. His track shorts didn't take too much damage today, but still it's an odd outfit to be fighting in. Eric just takes in my appraisal and shrugs.

"Bill will, no doubt, have something appropriately ninja for me to wear when we get to his place." With that, we all hightail it across the cemetery and are greeted by Bill's guards, who have apparently been waiting for us. When we step into the house, Bill is in the foyer and, just like Eric predicted, he's holding a set of black, Kevlarish- looking clothes and a pair of combat boots, which he hands off to Eric.

"What are they doing here?" Bill says by way of greeting, not even looking at me, Lafayette or Jesus.

"Sookie has come up with an alternate plan, which I think is worth listening to." Eric says, nonchalantly. Eric takes the stuff Bill has for him into the study and comes out just a few seconds later, dressed to kill.

"Sookie, I thought I we agreed you would to stay out of this. You've already been hurt once during all of this." Part of me wants to tell Bill that _we_ didn't agree to anything last night. _He _whined and then didn't give me a chance to reply. But I stifle it, if for no other reason than because I know Bill just wants to keep me safe. It's nice and all that he cares so much, but the way he's acting just brings home my dream all that much more. To Bill I'll never be anything more than Human and, as far as he's concerned, I shouldn't get involved in Vampire affairs or even know about them, much less help out when people I love are on the line.

I know that I could get hurt tonight: I 'm not stupid…well, I'm not _that _stupid, but it's worth the risk to me to try to help the people I care about, and I'm not backing down.

"Bill, we've been over this. I'm not going to sit idly by and do nothing while Eric and Jessica and you and even Pam risk your lives. I can help. Just hear Jesus and Lafayette out, please?" I ask. Bill just grimaces but he does look over at the boys and, when I turn to Eric, I see him nod at me with pride in his eyes.

"We figured out a way to defeat Antonia." Jesus says, smiling with a great deal of his own pride. He motions to the urn that Lafayette is holding and explains everything to Bill. "Right, we can't just kill Debbie. Antonia will simply keep jumping hosts if we do that. We need to trap her in this, and then we can do a spell to bind her to it. Then, if we break the urn, her spirit will be destroyed as well. It's the only way." Bill gives the urn and the boys a hard look.

"And you're sure you can pull her out of Debbie?" He asks. Jesus and Lafayette share a significant look between each other and I realize that we have a lot of catching up to do over coffee at some point.

"Positive." Jesus says without missing a beat.

"Alright then, but we still need to find her." Bill replies and again I interrupt.

"That shouldn't be a problem. I called Alcide today and he said that he would track her. He also said that the Were pack is willing to help. They don't want one of their own permanently injured." That just gets a disgusted sigh from Bill, but he nods his head. At that moment, Eric's cell phone goes off.

"It's Alcide." He says, before answering. They exchange a few words, nothing more than the bare minimum, and then Eric hangs up.

"Debbie is at Alcide's home. The Were pack are assembling there now. He's told them about the plan and they've agreed to wait until we arrive."

"Fine." Bill says. He makes a motion to one of his guards and suddenly two more of them appear with a black metal trunk. The guards put it down and open it up. Eric just snorts when he sees the content.

"Bazookas?" He chuckles. He walks over and pulls one out. "How charmingly twenty-first century of you Bill." Eric might be snorting derisively, but he's touching the automatic weapon in a way that's actually making me a little jealous and I realize that my Viking has a soft spot (or a hard one) for all weapons of death and destruction.

That seems to be the queue for everyone to get their butts in gear, because just then Jessica and Nan walk up from the basement dressed in identical ninja/swat/ass-kicking gear.

"Hey Sookie!" Jessica says, rushing over excitedly to join us. I can see clearly that she's absolutely spoiling for this fight and I have to take a step back and wonder when I started filling my life with people who love killing things so much. I swear, before I met Bill my life was normal. Well…as normal as life can be for a telepathic/Fairy who knows she's telepathic but not a Fairy…but still!

Pam is last up the basement stairs and she's carrying something huge and long under a velvet covering. Walking over to Eric, Pam takes off the cloth and I see that she has two gigantic swords in her hand. One she attaches to a belt already at her waist, and the other (the longer one, which is almost as tall as me) she hands to Eric. Eric's eyes go wide and his face breaks out into a positively ecstatic, fangy smile.

"When did you have time to get them?" He asks, his hands moving reverently over the steel. Pam just smiles back in return, proud to have made her maker happy.

"I had Ginger bring them over during the day." She replies. Suddenly Eric's happy expression goes arcticly cold.

"You let Ginger touch my sword?" He asks in a voice that is barely above a whisper, but suddenly has everyone but Pam taking a giant step back from the very obviously, dangerously pissed Viking. Pam, on the other hand, just quirks one of her perfectly shaped eyebrows and stares her maker down.

"Did you want it here or not?" The two of them glare at each other for another moment and then Eric relents, taking the harness Pam is also holding and strapping it to his back. Putting the sword in on the first try, even though he can't actually see the holster from in front, Eric nods to Bill and we all take off for Alcide's housing development in what looks like a bullet proof cargo van, with Eric at the wheel.

Just before we reach the gate to Alcide's community, Eric takes a turn off onto a little dusty road and stops the van in a clearing. We all hop out and, one by one, about ten members of Alcide's pack come out of the woods.

Bill and Eric go up to a man with long hair and a scruffy goa-tee and begin to talk. It appears at first that Bill is deeply unhappy about something. But, after a few minutes, Eric cuts him off mid-sentence and says something to him that, though I can't hear, apparently gets Bill to back down. When it seems like they've settled things, all three men walk on over to Lafayette, Jesus, Pam, Nan, Jessica and I.

"The Weres will apprehend Debbie. Jesus and Lafayette, when they have her secured they will give a signal for you to enter the house and you can extract Antonia from Debbie. Jessica, Pam, Nan and I will go on ahead and glamour the Humans to leave the area. Eric, you will remain outside of the house with Sookie and, if the Weres should need back up, you will go in and assist them. Let's go." With that, Bill readjusts his very large weapon and begins walking to the guard station at the gate to glamour his first Human of the night.

Eric comes up beside me and, with a hand at the small of my back, we start to walk with the Weres. Bill has the gate open and the guard leaving in no time flat and we all walk into the complex without a single problem.

"What was all that about?" I whisper into Eric's ear as we're walking. Eric just grimaces.

"Bill did not want to allow the Weres to make the actual capture. It took some convincing for him to see reason. I never thought, in all my long life, that I would agree with a wolf about anything." He answers me with a sour expression, as though I just popped a bulb of garlic in his mouth. I suppose the Vampires, Witches and Werewolves will never be singing a chorus of Kumbyja around a campfire, but it's nice to see everyone working together, no matter how pissed off they all look about it.

Pam, Jessica, Bill and Nan break off from us at the top of Alcide's block and I see them take off in streaks as they start going house to house, glamouring the Humans in each to leave.

"Where's Alcide?" I ask after a few minutes, when it appears that most people are getting in their cars and going off to wherever the Vamps told them to.

"He's inside the house. He promised to keep Debbie occupied while we were coming." Eric answers. Bill returns, telling us that the immediate streets are empty, and the Weres close in on the house.

The Weres enter the house and everything looks like it's going hunky dory when, all of a sudden, a blinding bright light surrounds Alcide's place. The Weres who weren't quite inside yet seem to notice this and start running back towards us, when they're thrown back against the house by the light barrier, hitting it and falling to the ground, stunned.

Realizing we're in trouble, Eric draws his sword and tries to get in front of me, Jesus and Lafayette. Before any of us can do anything though, Pam, Bill, Jessica and Nan appear. Pam has her sword drawn and the others have their weapons trained on us. We're all frozen in place when we hear a cackling sound coming from the woods. Debbie suddenly steps out of the tree line at the end of Alcide's property, laughing hysterically. Jesus and Lafayette start chanting, but Debbie levels them with a withering glare.

"Say another word and I'll have the Vampires kill all of you!" She threatens. Eric just growls at her and it brings her attention immediately to him.

"Still broken." She whispers frustratedly, as though she can't figure it out, and then she turns to me and her eyes go as cold as stone. "That's your doing." She accuses. Her clear threat to me brings an end to Eric's patience and he lunges at Nan, who's closest to him, and cuts her head off in one swift stroke, clearing a path between him and Debbie.

Debbie doesn't even have the time to start ordering her new vampire zombies to attack us before Eric reaches her. It's plain to see what he intends to do, and Jesus and Lafayette start screaming at him to stop. If he kills Debbie, there is no telling what Antonia will do next. Eric stops just short of her, his sword drawn on her, his fangs down and glistening.

"Don't come a step farther, Vampire, or my minions will tear your friends apart." Eric growls at her and Pam, Bill and Jessica come closer to us. I can feel my hands starting to warm up and I'm so thankful that I can't even find words. As usual, there's very little thought from me involved in the process. My light seems to instinctively burst out from my hands and in rapid succession hits Bill, Jessica and Pam.

The Vamps all drop to their knees, doing that same disoriented thing that Eric did when I shot him, and Debbie looks startled for one quick second but then she just smiles evilly at me. She drops to her knees suddenly, looking as though she's in pain and without warning, Antonia comes out of her. Jesus and Lafayette start to chant again and they're trying to get the urn open when Antonia looks straight at me.

"I think I prefer you!" She says menacingly. I hear Eric screaming with rage and Lafayette and Jesus chanting, but nothing seems to stop what happens next. Antonia literally comes barreling towards me. My light goes off again, but she isn't a solid object at this point and it just goes right through her, hitting a tree and breaking off several branches. And then suddenly it's like something is ripping me apart from the inside.

My whole body fills with a virtual explosion of pain and then I feel as though I'm being shoved into a wall. It takes me a second to realize that my body isn't being shoved, it's me…my consciousness. It's being pushed into a little corner of my brain where I can't control any part of myself, but somehow I can still see out of my eyes which, along with the rest of me, are now under someone else's control.

"Much better." I hear my own voice say, even though I didn't tell it to. I hear myself chuckle, more evilly than I have ever heard anything that's come out of my mouth, and I watch helplessly as Eric tries to rush me, screaming my name, but is stopped by Pam, Bill and Jessica. He roars in complete rage and tries to throw them off of him.

I hear my voice laughing again and then I feel something happen. I'm surrounded by a blinding white light and then, all of the sudden, I'm not on the front lawn of Alcide's house anymore, I'm in Bill's study.

"You are mine now, little telepath." I hear my voice say to me and, of course, there's no more denying what's happened. Antonia is in me!


	6. Chapter 6

_**A/N:**__ Hi, here 's the next chapter. Things are getting a tiny wheeny bit angsty, but I'm writing this story for fun, so I promise things get resolved the next chapter, and then we can get back to the true purpose of fanfic- to have Eric and Sookie do it in every position possible in every location available!_

_Thank you to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, alerting and favoriting this story, you guys make my day! _

_And thanks so much to my beta Sheknitsnicely! I'm serious about that one, I sent her this chapter like less than an hour ago and she totally ninja beta'd the whole thing. She has some serious kung fu!_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own them, if I did there would be no reason for this story: Sookie would have told Eric-in no uncertain terms- that she wasn't accepting his good bye, pulled him into the mother of all office kisses, and then chained him in the basement and had her dirty little Fairy way with him way back in season 3!_

I've always thought being a telepath pretty much sucked. I haven't known that I'm also part Fairy for very long, but considering that I was almost imprisoned in their world and made to participate in a "consent not required" breeding program, I have to say that I pretty much think being a Fairy sucks too.

Turns out neither of those things sucks quite as much as being possessed by a four hundred years dead, revenge thirsty, necromancing witch! In the history of "things sucking" I think I just achieved an all-time high (or low, depending on whether you're a glass half full or half empty type of person).

I…we have been sitting quietly in Bill's study for over a half hour now and, even though I haven't exactly been comfortable knowing I'm now nothing more than a passenger in my own body (and it sure as heck ain't Jesus at the wheel), I really start to become frightened by this whole thing when I see my hands start to glow.

I hear my voice laughing and I can tell that Antonia is as giddy as a school girl now that she's realizing I'm so much more than just a simple, country-bumpkin mind reader.

"Padre, Hijo y Espiritu Santo!" I hear myself say in perfect Spanish as I bring my hands up and start examining them. "What are you?" Wow, it's even more annoying hearing someone ask me that question when they're doing it with my own voice! I really have no idea what I should say to that or if I'm even capable of answering her at all, but I don't get much of a chance to think about it, because before I can even form the words "fuck off" (which absolutely would have been my answer), Antonia is somehow invading my brain and it's even more painful than when she invaded my body.

She's literally digging through my head, looking for answers, flipping through my memories, and it feels like she's scratching my brain with sharp, sharp finger nails from the inside. It's violating and agonizing and so much worse than anything I would ever dream of doing to someone when I looked through their mind. It makes me want to scream with rage and, even though I don't have any clue if it will help or not, I just give in to my instinctive response and pull up my shields, trying to block her out of that part of my head. I hear myself gasp, and then Antonia chuckles at me in that evil little way.

"Very interesting. You're a great deal more work than either of my other hosts, but then you also have far more potential!" She says. "I don't know why, but I never really believed that Hadas existed, and yet here you are." Antonia laughs again and then she points my left hand at an ugly painting on Bill's wall and my light comes rushing out and hits it, busting the painting into a million little pieces of paper, glass and brass.

I don't know whether to be pissed that apparently she's far better at controlling my powers than I am or amused that, if we're going to be sharing a body for any length of time, we can at least agree we're both utterly offended by Bill's total lack of taste!

"You have all these powers and yet you allow the Vampires to wreak havoc with your life. Why?" She asks, and I suddenly realize that she's expecting an answer. Can I answer her?

"Asks the person who stole my body and just tried to rape my mind!" I yell, though of course I'm really only thinking it. Antonia just sighs in response, as though I'm a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

"I just saw your memories, little girl. What do you call someone who lets others nearly kill her to gain control over her? What do you call being repeatedly lied to? What do you call being acquired for someone else's collection? What do you call being locked in a dungeon and used as bait? You could kill them all if you wanted to. Why don't you?" I just snort at her.

"Yeah, no one's perfect, and in case you missed it while you were scratching apart my brain, I dumped Bill for his shit. As for Eric…his methods might be a little kamikaze cowboy, but he was trying to save all of our lives, and he succeeded. So whatever the purpose of this conversation is, you can just forget it! I don't want to trade Vampire victimization stories with you. I want you out of my body! Do you hear me?" The thought of this being trying to turn me against my friends when she's the one who's literally taken me hostage, makes me so angry that for one moment I think with all my might about just shoving her hard. Unexpectedly, it actually feels like it does something, but it's like tensing a muscle you've never used before and it hurts like hell after only a second. It's too hard to keep doing it for any longer and I stop, feeling exhausted.

Whatever I did though, Antonia feels it and she clamps down on her hold on my body big time. I hear her give a little cry of rage and then I feel like I'm being pushed back into that little corner of my brain… HARD.

"Stop fighting me!" She hisses in anger. "Why are you fighting me? With your powers and my ability to control magic we could be an invincible force! Don't you want people to stop interfering with your life? Don't you want people to respect you? I saw your memories: it's not just the Vampires. All your life, people have been laughing at you, calling you names, hating you and thinking you an aberration, yet using you for your gift. I could help you. You and I, we are more alike than you can possibly imagine. We could teach them to respect you!" Antonia's voice sounds more righteous than a preacher on Sunday by the time she's finished her little sales pitch, and I'm figuring this is how she got Marnie on board with her scheme.

I saw inside Marnie's head and I know she was a scared woman who wanted to find something in life that would make her great. She thought channeling Antonia would do that for her. Just like Eric said: little people wanting to be big.

"Sorry lady, you can sing that tune all night long and it won't make one bit of difference! My Gran raised me right and I don't hurt other people just because I can, to prove I'm stronger than them! And I sure as hell don't give two dang cents what you think about the Vampires in my life. I care about Bill and Jessica and even Pam, and I'm not going to let you hurt them. And I sure as hell won't let you hurt Eric! I swear right now. I will fight you every single second you're in me! The only thing wrong with my life is that I'm being possessed!" I'm all but screaming in my head and suddenly I see my hands light up again, but this time they're glowing red. Holy S! They've never done that before! What is she doing with my light?

"You're going to regret that, little Hada. You're going to regret that!" She says. Before I can reply, though, I hear the front door open. Antonia smiles as we listen to Bill enter the house, calling orders to his guards and giving instructions to Jessica about calling my brother and telling him not to come near me if he sees me. Then the door to the study opens and Bill stops mid-step in the entryway.

"I don't need to invite you in, do I Vampire?" Antonia chuckles at her little joke and taps my fingers on the hard wood of Bill's desk as she reclines in his chair.

"Sookie?" Bill asks, his voice a combination of relief, anxiety and even a little fear. I feel Antonia shake my head.

"She is in here, but no. It is I, Antonia." She says dramatically. Wow, that was straight up, stereotypical villain right there. Bill enters his office completely and quickly closes the door behind him before anyone else can see me in here.

"Is Sookie alright?" He asks, real concern tinting his voice. Antonia nods.

"For now. But if you want her to remain that way then I think it's time you and I sat down and had a talk, no." Bill's face remains utterly emotionless, but he takes the couple of steps to one of his guest chairs and sits down, every movement slow and deliberate so as not to spook Antonia in any way.

"You know I have always desired an amicable end to our unfortunate misunderstanding." He says, his voice dripping soothing, southern charm. Antonia just snorts in return.

"Yes, well we could debate that until the sun came up and I'm sure we would not come to agreement on that issue. But the fact remains that you have several things I want, and I believe that I now have something you desperately want in return." I can hear the sneer in Antonia's voice but I think I'm more concerned about the absolute fire that seems to suddenly heat Bill's usually ice cold eyes. She's got him there and we all know it.

"What is it you want?" Bill responds, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Let's be frank with each other first, shall we? Your little Fairy hit you with her light, which means that, for the time being, you are immune to my powers. But I have your Fairy and I won't give her back unless you give me exactly what I want. Now, since I have control of the only person who could have stopped me, I could pop away and find some other Vampires to take over and keep coming at you night after night, or…," before she says anything else, Antonia lights my hands with the freaky red light, letting Bill get a good look at this new power I didn't even know I had, "I can try out some of her other powers and see if any of them have a more… immediate effect on you and your little group." Bill swallows loudly, which is so totally not confidence inducing since, you know, Vampires don't need to swallow, and levels her with a wary gaze.

"Or…" Antonia nods, happy with the way things are going.

"Or you can give me what I want and I will promise to give you back your Fairy and leave for good." Bill moves to the edge of his chair and puts his hand on the edge of the desk.

"Tell me what you want." He demands, both worried and seemingly out of patience all at the same time.

"Nothing so terrible. As a matter of fact, I don't think you will really object to any of my demands." Antonia replies, her voice suddenly light, almost friendly, as though they're buds discussing some interesting tidbit of gossip. "First I want your promise that you will leave me in peace. Next, I desire another host. It's been hundreds of years since I had a body and I'd quite forgotten how nice it is. I want a young, healthy female- someone attractive, preferably a brunette." Bill nods his head and, though I'm thrilled he's willing to bargain for the return for my body, it also sickens me a little how utterly unfazed he is by the idea of pulling some poor girl off the road and using her as a human sacrifice.

"Done. What else." Antonia thinks for a moment and then gives him her next demand.

"I want money. Cash, so I can start my new life right." Bill smiles at her.

"That is eminently doable. Now…." Antonia holds up her hand cutting him off.

"I'm not finished yet, Vampire. I want one more thing. I returned to this plain because I desired to have revenge on your kind for what they did to me and to my sisters so long ago. I have wandered between the worlds for over four hundred years because my desire for justice would not let me move on. I'm not leaving now without it. In payment for the things that have been done to me and to all the helpless by your kind, I desire the true death of the blond Vampire. It was he who attacked Marnie at Moon Goddess and brought me back to this world, and I want his death as payment." Eric!

"Eric?" Bill asks, although he's doing it with a lot less terrified screaming than I am.

"Yes, I desire him to meet his true death in a manner of my choosing, with me there as witness, and then I will give you back your little Fairy and go away." Oh God! Oh God, please no! Suddenly I realize that this has more to do with her promise that I would regret not joining with her than with any desire for four hundred year old vengeance. I wouldn't give her what she wanted and so she'll take the man I love away from me and destroy the last vestiges of the care I have for Bill in one fell stroke.

"I cannot agree to this. Sheriff Northman is my subject. It is my duty to protect him, and all the other Vampires in my Kingdom. How will I remain King if my subjects find out that I've sacrificed one of them to make peace with you?" Oh thank God! Oh Bill, I could kiss you right now!

"Oh come now," Antonia laughs at him, "I'm hardly asking you for something you don't want to give me anyway. I am one with Sookie. Every memory she has, I have seen. Every emotion she feels, or has ever felt, I am privy to. I know how deeply you love her, and I know something else as well, something I think you will be very interested to hear. She loves you as well: deeply and truly.

Northman means nothing to her. He's merely a diversion, a distraction from her pain at the unfortunate things that happened between you. What is it they are calling it these days? Ah yes, a…rebound? She is merely consoling herself with his attentions and his…endowments. But you know your Sookie. Once she declares herself loyal to someone she would never betray them. If Northman were gone, out of the way, Sookie would go back to you. Why, I'm sure she'd do it with open arms, knowing you'd killed him to save her." Antonia stops talking at that point, letting Bill's noose just hang there, allowing him the chance to slip it on all by himself.

"Bill, NO!" I shout in my head, pleading with him even though he can't hear me. Hoping like hell that he knows me well enough to know that I would_ never_ want my body back at the price of Eric's life. "Please don't do this, don't listen to her." I sob helplessly. "I love him, I love him, and I will NEVER forgive you if you do this! Please, please don't take him from me!" If I had control of my body right now, the tears would be streaming down my cheeks, but all I can do is scream soundlessly in my head and watch as Bill thinks it over. Bill is fucking thinking it over!

"Bill, Eric saved us all from Russell! He saved you last fucking night, from this bitch! Please!" I cry and cry but it makes no difference. Bill's face doesn't change in the least, but I see him pull his cell phone from a pocket in his black army jacket and hit a few buttons. A minute later he speaks.

"Eric, I have a lead on Antonia and Sookie. I need you to come to my home immediately." He orders. Eric must say something to him that I can't hear and then he answers. "No, I think it best if we approach her with as few people as possible. Just you." With that, Bill hangs up on him and I feel my soul literally rip in half.

"You've made a wise choice, Vampire! Soon we will both have everything we want." Antonia laughs softly.


	7. Chapter 7

_**A/N: **__Hi, I just wanted to thank everyone for the super, awesome responses for this story. I'm just blown away! Thank you so much! I also want to thank my awesome, perfect, amazing, wonderful beta Sheknitsnicely for all her hard work. She's working on two separate stories with me and writing her own right now! That's a butt load of work on one's "free time", so thank you so much love! You rock my world!_

_**Disclaimer:**__ Alan Ball wouldn't sell them to me, cause if he had Sookie would have pulled Eric through her door after telling Bill to keep the hell away from her, and helped him scrub cement out of those 'hard to reach' places at the end of Season 3!_

Helpless and hopeless are pretty much twin emotions: you don't feel one without the other. Only it's not just one twin that's evil. Right now the nasty pair of them are trying to become my new best friends.

I watch in an absolute helpless stupor as Antonia instructs Bill's Human guards to gather fire wood and build a pyre. I listen while sobbing as I hear the sound of trees being cut down and men calling to each other. I look out of my own eyes, which Antonia now controls, and see as she and Bill put her plan into effect and I try hopelessly to push against the barrier that Antonia seems to have erected around my consciousness after I gave her that one little push back in Bill's office. It's an impenetrable wall around me that I can't see, but that traps me into a small corner of my mind, caging me in like an animal.

I let everything that happens in the next minutes play out more like a movie I'm watching than an actual, real event that's happening to me. Eric arrives after about twenty minutes, landing in the front yard and being ambushed by Bill's guards, all carrying high powered rifles with wooden bullets in them. Before he can even say a word, they've ripped his shirt off and wrapped him in silver chains. Bill and Antonia, and by default me, walk over to him as the guards are pushing him down on to his knees.

"Bill, what the fuck is this?" Eric roars at him, watching with huge eyes that remind me so much of his amnesia self as I walk up right beside Bill, Antonia painting my face with an evil little smile.

"Antonia has agreed to relinquish her hold on Sookie, but she has certain conditions. I'm sorry Eric," Bill says, his accent thick and his voice dripping with his supposed helplessness in all this, as he turns from Eric and levels Antonia and me with a heavy gaze, "but I have no choice. I have to do what is best for Sookie, and Antonia will not release her until you've paid for your attack on the witches at Moon Goddess." Antonia just laughs heartily, and Eric kneels there, stone faced.

Me, I'm screaming. I'm begging Eric like a sinner at the rapture to stand up and fucking fight! And I'm telling Bill exactly what I'll do to him the minute this bitch is out of my body, or what I'll happily let_ her_ do to him once Eric is gone, since I doubt like hell she's really going to give up her snazzy new Fairy body.

We all seem to just stand frozen for a moment, Bill and his guards waiting as though they expect Eric to start struggling and Antonia tasting her victory, when Eric looks up at me with wide blue eyes.

"You will not harm Sookie?" He asks, his voice low, almost sounding defeated. Antonia shakes her head.

"No, she is undamaged and she will remain so…as long as you cooperate." Is her answer. Eric turns to Bill then and gives him a decisive nod.

"Very well." WHAT? No! Hopeless is cuddling right up to me as Eric allows himself to be dragged to the pyre and bound to a giant wooden stake that's been put in the middle with more silver chains. Antonia watches, standing next to Bill as his men walk down and then turns to him and smiles.

"Allow me." She chuckles and suddenly I see my hands start to glow red again. Antonia aims them at the pile of wood surrounding Eric and then, as it always seems to happen in my life, everything explodes at the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour!

There's a huge commotion behind us and I see Pam suddenly streak onto the front lawn, taking the heads off three of Bill's guards with her sword. Behind her, moving at a still fast but decidedly Human speed, are Jesus and Lafayette, chanting as they go and carrying the very open urn from earlier this evening. Bill, seeing that Pam has the upper hand on his Human guards, despite their guns, streaks away from Antonia's side, pulling his wooden bullet gun from his belt as he does and diving on top of her.

Bill and Pam collide with a force that knocks the sword from her hand and they begin to wrestle on the lawn, Bill trying to get the gun in Pam's face and Pam trying to get him to drop it, or turn the barrel in his direction.

As all this is happening, I decide that I'm DONE! I am not letting this witch kill Eric and I am not letting Eric sacrifice himself for me. I am not letting Bill kill Pam and I sure as _hell_ am not letting that Judas think, for even a second longer, that I would EVER let myself be his prize for a betrayal well executed!

With something that feels like the mental equivalent of an adrenaline rush, I start to throw my consciousness against the barrier that Antonia has put up around me, slamming into it and trying to visualize pushing her with all my might. It hurts. It hurts so bad it feels as though I'm breaking my bones by slamming my body into a brick wall, over and over again, but I don't care. I just don't give a damn anymore. I won't watch Eric die, I won't!

My body actually falls forward, as if I'd tripped on something, when I give my first hard slam at Antonia, and I can feel her start to panic. She knows what I'm doing. Summoning all her strength, Antonia gives an all-out cry of rage and then, before she starts to concentrate completely on fighting me, she points my hand at the wood below Eric's feet and lets out a burst of that red light, which turns out to be a concentrated fireball, that lights the wood beneath him in a single shot.

Having accomplished her goal, she turns around and tries to step towards the guards that are holding Jesus and Lafayette prisoner, their hands over my friends' mouths at Bill's request. I know that Antonia is going to kill them and I can hear the sounds of Eric screaming in anguish behind me, so I do the only thing I can right now: I throw myself up against that brick wall again with all of my might.

I'm crying from the pain of it now, but it gets Antonia to stop moving for just a second. It's a second that turns out to be well worth the effort because, in that moment, another streak comes out onto the lawn from the house. It's Jessica and, using her unexpected involvement to the most advantage, she manages to rip the heads off the guards that were holding Jesus and Lafayette, freeing them.

Without a single, split second of hesitation they begin to chant again and I feel something happening. Antonia is screaming in rage now and trying as hard as possible to hold her ground inside of me. She tries to clamp down hard as they come closer to her and I know that, no matter how exhausted and broken I feel, Antonia is not going to go easy. They need my help…_Eric_ needs my help.

I stop fighting for one moment, letting myself go completely calm, letting Antonia think that I've given up, and I try with all my might to visualize my own strength. Then I throw myself, harder than I ever imagined I could, at Antonia's barrier.

This time I feel the barrier shatter: not like a brick wall, but like a glass window that's had a rock thrown into it. Suddenly I'm free to move around my mind again, and I feel my mind take control of my body!

Antonia gives another wrenching, rage filled scream, but it doesn't come out of my mouth this time: I only hear it in my head. Jesus and Lafayette must understand what's going on because they are smiling like loons as they finish the final words of the spell and suddenly Antonia's spirit is pulled out of me.

I gasp in pain as I watch her being sucked from my body, into the bottle, and then Jesus caps it and throws the bottle against the ground, shattering it and sending Antonia's spirit into a oblivion.

Jesus and Lafayette start laughing hysterically and hugging each other, thrilled that they did it, that it worked, and I wish that I could join them, but the heart breaking whimper of pain from behind me lets me know there isn't a second more to lose getting Eric free.

Turning around, I see him on the pyre. The flames have reached his waist and they're burning him badly. After everything that's happened, the sight of him dying in agony in front of me seems to let something loose.

Maybe it's that Antonia got my body used to summoning these new powers and they just kick in again out of a new habit, or maybe they were always there, waiting to come out, or maybe seeing and hearing the man I love burning to death is some sort of catalyst, but all of the sudden I feel filled with an utter rage and I hear the wind start to pick up, blowing like a hurricane around the lawn and lifting my hair from around my shoulders. My whole body starts to itch, the way my hands do when they light up, and I look down only briefly, too angry and scared to really care, and notice that my whole body is glowing a bright white.

As it always has before, what happens next happens on pure instinct, as though, when I allow my brain to turn off, my Fairy nature just automatically kicks in - like an autopilot feature. I simply turn to the burning pyre, raise both my hands and watch as two giant balls of light fly from them. I hear myself saying, "NO! No more!" my voice echoing eerily, as though I'm in a cave, and then, as if it never was, the fire just goes out.

If I cared to look around at that moment, I would have seen Jesus and Lafayette frozen mid hug, staring at me with looks of utter astonishment. I would have noticed that Pam and Bill had stopped fighting mid blow and are looking at me with almost identical expressions of fear. I would have noticed that the Human guards who hadn't been ripped apart or beheaded have pretty much run screaming, and I would have seen Jessica just smiling a little.

But I don't look. I don't look at any of them. My eyes, my thoughts, my entire being, down to its tiniest blood vessel, are completely and utterly focused on Eric and the fact that he isn't looking back at me, or at anything. I feel the fear grip me, its hold on me even stronger than Antonia's had been -and I do exactly what my body wants to, letting go and giving "Fairy Sookie" the reins.

My body is all light for one instant, and then I'm no longer standing on the lawn with Jesus and Lafayette in front of me, I'm on top of the pyre with Eric. I stare at him for one endless seeming moment, taking in his closed eyes, his burnt body, and his slumped posture. Something in me knows, just looking at him, that he's seconds away from succumbing to his true death.

The scream that fills the air is mine, though I don't really remember making it, but I do feel the silver beneath my hands as I grip the chains and let my light out one more time. It would have taken me minutes we don't have to unwind the chains link by link, but my light seemed to cut them in half within a second and they fall, with a huge clanging noise, around Eric's feet.

Once he's loose, his body lurches forward and nearly falls on top of me. Pivoting I put my arms around him and bring him to sit on the now flameless wood pile, his back resting against the stake he'd just been chained too.

"Eric?" I say softly. At first, nothing happens and my panic mounts, but then I see him slowly open his eyes. The fire is out but he's still in complete agony.

I remember vaguely, that day at Fangtasia when I'd separated him from Russell and dragged him, by his leather jacket, in from the sun. I remember sneering at Bill and asking him to watch Eric in case he lost control and tried to drain me (just as Bill had done) as I put the wrist Bill had punctured for me under Eric's mouth. I'd been serious about that then, even though I'd also done it to taunt Bill, since I was mad at him at the time. Now, I don't care.

Eric had been willing to sacrifice himself yet again to save my life. He'd allowed himself, without any fight, to be chained up here and set on fire. Something in me knows that he'd never, ever hurt me in that way but that even if he does it no longer matters to me. It'd just make us even Steven: his life for mine, my life for his. That's real love after all, giving everything onto your death for the person you love, without hesitation.

I've always been a modest, god fearing, Southern woman, and that comes along with a great deal of morality and some very puritanical views about sex, the human body and public nudity, so I can only guess that "Fairy Sookie" is still running the show at this point, because I don't hesitate or feel even a moment's shame before I do the only thing I can think of to help Eric.

Right in front of God and everyone, I whip the tight, black turtle neck off of me, leaving me in nothing but my black jeans and my practically see-through black lace bra, which I feel like I'd donned in another life (when I'd promised Eric that we'd defeat Antonia tonight and then he could have his way with me until the cows came home), and I crouch down in front of my barely still hanging on Vampire, putting my hand behind his head and pulling it into the crook of my neck.

For a single second I bend there, terrified that he won't be able to drop his fangs and that he'll just crumple to bits in front of me, and then I feel it: two tiny pin pricks at my neck and a relief that causes me to start crying with happiness and relief and love and anger and fear and terror and rage and everything else that I've felt since Eric and I left the safety of his cubby at sunset.

All those emotions feel like a storm on the wind and I can sense the air starting to get thicker and the breeze picking up and, for one terrifying moment, I'm frightened I'll lose control and just blow the whole world apart as I see my body, again, begin to glow. But before I can totally lose it, two strong, cool arms snake their way around me and Eric's body, which had been limp and barely upright before, suddenly starts to move.

Without ever letting his fangs leave their home in my neck, he goes from slumping limply to kneeling in front of me, his arms crushing me to his chest, one hand in my hair, petting it roughly, and the other moving steadily down my back, making its way into the back of my jeans and grabbing hold of my bottom possessively, pushing me into his healing, hardening body.

Another person might have become fearful right then and there, that they were essentially being held prisoner by an injured, starving Vampire, but that is the last thought in my mind. To me, I'm being held by the man I love as he comes back to me from the very edge of existence, taking my life into him and letting me heal him. There is nothing painful or frightening about it at all. It feels _right_ and it seems to ignite something inside of me. Oblivious to anything but Eric and I, I throw my arms around him too, pulling him as hard against me as I can, running my hands possessively over his body, grinding my chest against his, and moaning his name, over and over again, into his hair.

After what might have been only a minute or a paradise filled eternity, I hear Eric's fangs retract and feel his tongue on my neck, first sealing and then healing my marks. When he's finished he pulls away, just enough to look deep into my eyes for one long moment, every single emotion he feels for me naked in his, and then he pulls me into the most frenzied, passionate, toe curling, heart stopping, mind numbing kiss I'd ever felt.

My whole world contracts until there's nothing but the place where his lips ravage mine. Nothing but the taste of him, mingled with the taste of my own blood, nothing but the chills that run up and down my spine as his fangs play with my lower lip, nipping and sucking and pulling, nothing but the need to moan my pleasure and my relief, my need and my love into his mouth. And then there's one long, dramatic cough.

"Touching as this is…there are decency laws in this state." The voice: female, sarcastic and dripping with a fake southern drawl, pulls me out of the happy, horny little world where nothing exists but Eric and me, and I look down to see Pam, standing at the foot of the pyre, hand on hip, high-heeled boot clad foot tapping impatiently.

"Fairy Sookie" apparently abandons me faster than a rat on a sinking ship at this moment, because I feel myself go red as a beet as I realize that Eric and I had been half naked and ready to have sex right on his funeral pyre in front of pretty much all my close friends…well all my friends and Bill.

I hide my embarrassed face in Eric's neck for one more moment, letting my hands pat around the wood pile blindly hunting for my sweater and letting him chuckle slightly and kiss my hair, before we break apart and I shove that sweater over my head as fast as I can.

Once I'm again decent, Eric helps me descend the wood pile. I want to go to Lafayette and Jesus and Jessica and thank them, but first I need to do something more important. Turning to Eric, who's still holding my hand in his, I look up into his eyes, which are getting brighter and healthier with each passing moment.

"Are you really alright? I was so scared. I could see and hear everything, but I couldn't figure out how to fight her until it was almost to late." Eric pulls me to him and I can see already that his strength is returning. Bringing me back into the shelter of his arms he lays a chaste, gentle kiss on my lips, and then licks them softly as he's pulling away.

"I am well. You pushed her out of you to save me." Eric's last words are a statement, not a question, but they're said with a great deal of adoring awe and matched by an expression that I can only call worshipful. Seeing him look at me like that is a little overwhelming and so I respond with a little, nervous laugh at first, but then feel myself sobering slightly.

"Of course I did." I say, reaching my hand up more to fondle that stubborn, perfect lock of hair than to actually brush it out of his eyes. "I couldn't let her hurt you. I love you. I couldn't live in a world without you in it!" Raising up on my tip toes and pulling Eric down to me by his shoulder, I let my lips touch his one more time before breaking apart so he and Pam can have their own private moment and I can thank Jessica, Jesus and Lafayette.

The three of them all come forward at the same time and I'm enveloped in a giant group bear hug. Lafayette tells me that he and Jesus and Pam were all still with Eric searching for me when Bill called and that Eric, mistrustful of Bill's odd request that he come alone (and rightfully so), asked them to follow him here. Jesus and Lafayette were scared of course, but they knew if Eric and Bill found me they were going to need witchy help anyway, to get Antonia out of me, so they agreed.

"Hookah, you done scared the life outa me!" Lafayette says after he finishes explaining everything. Suddenly, though, they all step back and look beyond me. Turning, I see that Bill has walked up to us and is staring at me with big, mournful, dark eyes.

"Sookie…" He says, pronouncing my name in that way that only he does. It's that way that I used to find sweet and sexy and even a little dirty, but it's none of those things now, and if I never hear him mutilate it again, it will be a day too soon. Part of me wants to walk off without a single word, but after the things that I heard him and Antonia talking about in his study, I realize that before I never see Bill Compton again, there's quite a lot that needs saying.

"If we're going to have a conversation, I'd like to do it privately please." I say to him, my voice tight. Bill nods and gestures to the house. I turn and start to follow him in when Eric comes up behind me and puts his hand gently on my shoulder.

"Will you be alright or do you want me to come in?" For all the things we've said to each other in the last two nights, I can see a little niggle of insecurity behind his eyes and it hurts, but I suppose that I have only myself to blame for that. It was me who did nothing, for so long, but tell Eric how much I hated him and how much I loved Bill. Even when I declared my love for him in the cemetery last night, I told him that I still cared for Bill. I guess even big badass sheriffs aren't immune to insecurities, especially when the women they love have been so good at planting them.

What I need to say to Bill I intended to say alone, but looking at Eric and knowing that he still feels so unsure of me and so uncertain of my feelings where Bill is concerned, I realize that not only does he have the right, as my boyfriend, to be there when I talk to Bill, but that he needs to hear what I have to say and I need him to hear it.

"I'll be fine." I say, and see him start to pull away from me disappointedly, just before his eyes start to go cold and emotionless. I stop him with a hand on his wrist. "But I'd like you to be there all the same." Eric turns back to me, uncertain, but when he sees the assurance in my eyes, his own go soft again and he smiles at me. "I love you, Eric, only you." I say, and then walk, my hand still on his wrist, pulling him in with me, to Bill's study.


	8. Chapter 8

_**A/N: **__Hi! Here's the next chapter. We're almost at the end. One more chapter to go now. I heartily apologize that this one doesn't end on a nice lemon, but I promise to make it up to you all by making the whole ending nothing but a huge pitcher of lemonade! _

_Thanks so much to everyone who's been reading, reviewing, alerting and favoriting. I'm beyond grateful! And thanks as always to my beta Sheknitsnicely! She pulled another ninja editing job on this one. Cause she's awesome!_

_**Disclaimer: **__ I don't own them, cause if I did there would be no reason for this story. Sookie would have patted Alcide on the head, given him a nice Milkbone in thanks for helping her find Eric and spent the rest of those pesky daylight hours religiously "tending" Eric's healing sunburns!_

Bill's study seems small, so much smaller than it did before, with all three of us in here, although it might just be the size of my anger that's making the room feel so crowded. There is so much to say and I feel a little overwhelmed by it all.

I'm standing in the middle of the room, as Eric leans up against the wall by the door and Bill faces the window, still trying to order my thoughts into something that won't sound like the angry, screaming temper tantrum of a three year old who almost had her favorite toy broken by another toddler, when Bill seems to take my silence as some sort of permission to start talking.

When he launches into what's become a familiar song and dance, I feel my anger melding with a great deal of exasperation. Honestly, maybe he should just tape this shit, then he could carry it around with him and every time he betrays me (which is starting to feel like a frighteningly frequent occurrence) he could just hit play and save himself the energy of having to constantly vomit up this verbal diarrhea.

"Sookie, I know that you're angry with me. But I did what I thought was best to protect you. When you've had a little time to calm down, I know you'll come to see that I did the only thing I could, given the circumstances." Ahh yes, the oldies yet goldies. This is pretty much the same conversation we had the last time Bill tried to kill Eric, for my protection of course.

"Seriously?" I ask, dumbfounded, not knowing whether I should be more offended that, knowing that I heard everything he and Antonia said to each other, he would still try to use this lame ass, idiotic excuse, or that he thinks I'm idiot enough to buy it. Did he honestly think he'd sucked out my brain when he put his blood into me again?

"I told you once I would not apologize for what you've awakened in me. Nor will I apologize for anything that keeps you alive. Sookie, I know I've made mistakes, grievous mistakes, but I love you, more than I have ever loved anything or anyone and I believe that, deep down, you still love me." My anger is mounting with every delusional, stupid, sanctimonious word out of Bill's mouth and I decide it's time to stop letting him control this conversation. I came here to set some things straight between us and I'm doing that now!

"Bill, you need to stop talking right now and start listening. What happened tonight…I'm not sure I even have words for it. But I'm not yelling and I'm not screaming right now, cause I want you to understand that what I'm about to say has nothing to do with me being angry at you, which I so am by the way.

Bill I _am not _in love you. I will _never_ be in love with you again. Nothing's changed, in that respect, since a week ago when I told you that, for me, it's only been like fifteen minutes since I found out that you'd betrayed me. Well now it's been a week and fifteen minutes. And on top of betraying me, you've tried, again, to kill Eric, and you sided with a psychotic witch, one that wanted you dead too, one that Eric saved you from not twenty-four hours ago, to try and maneuver your way back into my bed!

I'm feeling many, many things for you right now, Bill, but not one of them looks or feels anything like love. Up until about an hour ago, I can honestly say that, even after everything you'd done to me, I still cared for you. You were my first love, whatever your reasons were for being with me in the beginning, and I cared for you. I cared enough to get involved in all of this when the easier, safer, smarter thing to do would have been to keep the hell out of it! I risked my life and I convinced Eric to risk his… for you, and this is how you repay us!

Bill, even if you hadn't just shown me that you're every bit the devious, self-serving, manipulative bastard you've always accused Eric of being, that care would never, EVER have turned back into love." Bill's face darkens as I finish my little speech and I see something come over him that looks a great deal like hurt, but is far more chilling.

"I don't believe that! I know that you love me!" Bill shouts at me, his accent going all thick and drippy, and I can hear Eric behind me, growling a little in warning. Eric's been nothing but quiet the whole time, respecting my unspoken wish to let me handle this myself, but I have to say that, looking at Bill's face, I'm grateful he's got my back. Taking a deep breath, I say what I hope will finally make Bill understand that, even if he hadn't just tried to kill the man I love or made a bargain with the veritable devil to get me back, even if I could ever look at him without being angry again, it's over between us for good.

"Two nights ago when you gave me your blood, I had a vision. Claudine came to me and she helped me to figure a few things out. One of them was what I wanted out of my life, what I wanted for my future. Bill, I know you still love me. No matter how much I hate you for what you just did, I know you did it because, in your own twisted way, you love me and I know that, if we got back together, you'd love me and protect me and treat me like a lady.

But Bill, that's not enough… _you're_ not enough. You aren't who I want anymore. I'm sorry if you can't see that, but it's the truth, and nothing you do, good or bad, will ever change that. I'm asking you to accept that, and to accept the fact that, after all of this, I don't think I can ever even look at you again. I'm telling you what I told you before. Leave me alone. Leave Eric alone. I don't want anything to do with you. I don't love you and I don't want you and I never will." I know there are probably a bunch of things Eric would like to say to Bill too, but as for me, I'm finished. I said what I needed to and, if I never see Bill Compton again, that will be just fine with me.

Nodding my head to let Bill know our conversation is over, I turn and start to leave the room, holding out my hand for Eric to take so that we can walk out together, when I hear Bill's voice, bitter, enraged and unable to just let it be.

"And what…you think Eric can give you what you want?" He counters with a haughty, mocking tone in his voice. "You think Eric can be who you want? Eric doesn't want you for anything but sex and blood, Sookie, and it doesn't matter how sweet, or how good, or how perfect you are. When he's tired of what you have to offer, he'll leave you used up and spit out… with nothing." My first response to Bill's words is actually not anger but a bone weary sigh.

I've been through so much in the last couple of nights: I've handled being shot, un-zombieing Eric, saving Bill's butt, being possessed by the Wicked Witch of the South, being betrayed (yet again) by Bill, almost losing Eric and unleashing a whole bunch of new powers I barely understand and seem to have almost no control over, all on almost no sleep. My patience is fraying mightily at this point, as I drop my hand, my fingers just millimeters from entwining with Eric's, and turn back to Bill. I try my hardest to keep my temper, if for no other reason than that it scared the hell out of me when I almost lost it out on the lawn.

"That's not true, Bill." I reply, in the most quiet, even tone I can muster. "Eric loves me!" I say the last with genuine confidence, as I turn away from Bill again and let my eyes settle on the man I love. The man I only just realized, after nearly losing him, that I love more than I have _ever_ loved anything.

Eric is leaning up against the wall of Bill's study, his arms folded over his bare chest, the remains of his burnt out, black flack pants hanging low from his hips in tatters, his body covered in soot and ash, even though the burns have thankfully healed from his skin. He's a complete wreck and I've never ever loved or wanted him more! The fact that he's looking at me with an expression so open and so filled with genuine devotion, telling me in no uncertain terms that my statement is beyond true, just makes me all the more breathless.

Maybe it was easier to accept love from Eric when he had amnesia. It almost made sense then that he would care for me so much. After all, he knew nothing, no one, and I'd saved him. Of course he'd care for me. And without a thousand years of built up resentment for humanity and its idiocies and evils, it seemed natural for that care to turn into love.

But there is something different, something completely daunting and awe-inspiring, in seeing the depth of love coming from Eric's eyes right now and knowing that he's himself. That he -the whole him -is in there and that, even as the big bad centuries old and centuries hard Viking, he's still in love with me, he still adores me, he's still proud that I'm his, just the same as he did when he was scared and lost and blank… maybe more.

It makes me forget everything -where I am, what I'm doing here, what I was saying -and just makes me want to run into his arms and kiss every place where I know he was burnt and hurting and tell him how much I adore him, how I almost can't believe how happy he's already made me. It's only Bill's next words, angry and venomous, that draw me back to reality.

"Do you really think that moronic halfwit you picked up off the side of the road is still here? Look at him, Sookie. This is Eric, the real Eric, not that overgrown, lovesick puppy you fed and petted for a few days. He isn't capable of love!" Eric's eyes go dark and murderous as he hears Bill but, with far more calm than I have right now, he remains still, the only evidence of his rising anger the snicking sound as his fangs shoot down.

I'm angry at Bill's words, at his inability to believe that anyone but him could ever love me, and hurt at his desire to want to hurt me if he can't have me, but before I can get myself truly worked up, something clicks into place for me, something that didn't make a lick of sense before. Turning back to Bill, I look him up and down as though I've never seen him before… and maybe I haven't.

"That's it, isn't it? That's why you let Eric live, when he was cursed. You knew I'd never forgive you for hurting him when he was so vulnerable, and so you decided to let him go, to let me love him, because you were sure, when the curse was over and the real Eric came back, he would leave me, break my heart, and then you'd swoop in to pick up the pieces. You wanted me grateful for your supposed sacrifice so I'd come running to you for comfort when Eric abandoned me." I don't think I've ever felt so ashamed of myself as I do right now.

I've been so stupid, so blind, such an idiot. Always wanting to see the best in people no matter how much they prove otherwise. Always believing that I owed Bill something because he loved me, never realizing that his loving me didn't mean that I had to love him back, that I should save my heart for someone who deserved it. Oblivious to my "light bulb over the head" moment, Bill goes in for the kill.

"For God's sake, Sookie, you told me over and over again how much you hated him, but you forget how much of my blood you've had. I could feel each and every time you were near him how much you wanted to fuck him. Honestly, if you just had to take a ride on his cock, better to get it out of your system when he was little better than Rain man. I've always known how much you wanted to bed him, but I never thought you were foolish enough to believe that he could love you…." Two things happen at once right then.

Eric, finally pushed to his limit by being insulted over and over again and accused of using me, pushes off the wall ready to attack Bill. And my patience -that thin, frayed line -breaks completely. My anger at everything Bill has done, my hurt over how badly he's manipulated me and used me and my humiliation at always seeming to come back for more, just crash down over me and suddenly my brain is turned off and "Fairy Sookie" is back.

"Shut your filthy mouth!" I scream at Bill. I barely feel it when my light bursts out of my hands, two bright white cannonballs that hit Bill where he stands and send him flying backwards into the wall. Bill hits it hard, falling to the ground stunned, and taking pieces of dry wall and paint with him.

Bill's barely reached the floor, before I'm advancing on him, my rage seething from me and making the light in my hands turn from bright white to the angry red that flies out as fire. I'm just about to lift my hands again and point them straight at Bill's slumped form, when I feel a large, cool hand fall on my shoulder and a voice, calm and back in control, soothing me. It's speaking sense that "Fairy Sookie" doesn't want to hear, but that helps my higher brain functions kick back in.

"Sookie, no." Eric says, soft and assuring. "No matter how much you want to do this right now, no matter how much I'd love to see you do it, you'll regret it later." He's right of course. I will regret it. Not because Bill doesn't deserve to be a goop stain on the floor, but because I am not a murderer. I don't kill people for pleasure, not even when they're asking for it!

I turn to Eric and give him a look of gratitude. I know he wants Bill as truly dead as I do, but he loves me enough and he knows me well enough to know that I'll hate myself for it afterwards and he doesn't want me wasting a moment of regret on Bill's worthless hide.

When Eric sees my hands die down and realizes that I've calmed enough to not be dangerous anymore, he steps back, letting me take the reins again. Bill is still slumped on the floor, taking unnecessary breaths and trying to get himself under control, when I walk right up to him and look down on him with the coldest stare I've ever given anybody.

"Do not EVER talk about the man I love like that again, you sick, twisted, manipulative pervert!" I say through gritted teeth, straining to keep my cool. "Nothing you say will ever make me question what I have, and nothing you say will ever make me feel anything for you but complete and total hatred!" I'm barely hanging on at this point and I know the best thing for me to do would be to turn around and walk away before I lose it again, but before I do that there is just one more thing Bill needs to know. "Listen up, Bill Compton. I'm only gonna say this once, so I'm gonna say it slow and simple in words I hope you can understand. ERIC. IS. MINE. If you _ever _try to hurt him again, I will hunt you down and burn you to your true death where you stand!" I try hard not to feel complete satisfaction as Bill stares up at me with wide, terrified eyes and goes even more deathly pale than he already is, but it's hard.

Turning from him for the last time, I take the three strides back to Eric, take his hand and together we leave Bill's house without a backward glance. We walk about halfway through the cemetery in complete silence when I turn to Eric, still feeling all wound and stressed and say the first thing that comes into my mind.

"We need to get you clean." I mutter, and then laugh at how stupid it sounds, even if it is true. Eric looks down at himself and wipes a stray bit of soot off his stomach, looking at where it now stains his hand.

"I'll get your bathroom all dirty." He smiles gently, the tension seeming to drain out of both of us, and then he pins me with a smirk that's dirty in an entirely different way. "What do you say to losing our clothes in the woods again?"


	9. Chapter 9

_**A/N:**__ Here it is, the last chapter! Thank you guys all so very much for the wonderful responses to this story, I was so overwhelmed I can't even begin to tell you! Thanks also to my beta Sheknitsnicely! You are so the best! _

_**Disclaimer: **__Well, this is my last disclaimer for this story and it turns out there were so many more moments that I didn't get to mention, so this may not be entirely amusing, but I can't finish the story out without saying it. Here goes…_

_I don't own them, Alan Ball does, which is why: Eric didn't stake Longshadow (like he was supposed to), Eric didn't save Sookie from the maenad (like he was supposed to), Eric didn't save Sookie at Russel's mansion (like he was supposed to) and Eric didn't take Debbie's bullet for Sookie (like he was supposed to)! Oh and it's also why Bill didn't go to Peru this season and get eaten by a rabid Alpaca (like he should)!_

As Eric and I walk through the woods, his Vampire eyes seeing in the dark so much more clearly than I could ever hope to, I just follow where he leads, trusting him to find the way. It only takes a few minutes and then we're back at the spot where the little stream that runs through my property empties out into a beautiful pool, the same spot where he found me in the woods the night of the full moon, the same spot where we first made love.

How can it be that it all happened just a few days ago? The things I feel for him, they don't match up with the number of hours we've been like this. I feel like we've lived an entire lifetime since I found him, lost and scared, on the side of the road. I feel like I'm a completely different person than I was that night.

In so many ways, I was scared and lost on that night too. I'd barely survived my trip to Faery and found out that the only family I had left were no family at all. I'd come back to find that I'd lost a whole year of my life while everyone else had moved on, given up on me, or just plain forgotten me.

The man who claimed to love me had become a King and lived a comfortable life, feeding and fucking anything he pleased, never even trying to find me. My brother had sold our family home right out from under me as though he'd actually seen my body being lowered into the ground, instead of not knowing what happened at all, and my friends lived their lives without really seeming to be affected by my absence.

I should have known when I saw all those things, when I saw how utterly I didn't matter to any of them, that I'd spent my life making a lot of bad decisions. I should have seen that I'd put my trust in and given my heart to the wrong people. I should have understood that there was so much more worth finding in the one person who never gave up hope, who never stopped searching or believing that I would come back. The one person who didn't just sit back and give up, or turn back to his own problems and forget, but who thought about me, missed me, who did everything he could to make sure that, when I did return, I'd have a home and a life to come back to. I should have, but I didn't.

Antonia was a truly bad person, a woman who'd been twisted and soured by the horrible things that happened to her until she was just as evil as the evil she claimed to hate and yet, if it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here right now.

It was her spell that changed everything. It was her act of evil that brought me the truest love I could ever have dreamed of. I don't know quite what to make of that. I don't know if I should thank her or curse her name. I don't know if I should say a prayer that her soul will someday find peace or if I should hope that it's been snuffed out, never to have the opportunity of returning and hurting others again.

But I do know that I wouldn't be here right now, under the stars with Eric, if it wasn't for her. Maybe it was chance or maybe it was fate that Eric would be cursed and that I would finally see the man who lay beneath his many layers of coldness and cruelty. I'd like to think that there is a plan for all of us, that our lives aren't for nothing, that we're put here on this earth to do something, even if that something is only to love another with our whole hearts. Because I do, as unbelievable as it would have been eight days ago, I do. I love Eric Northman with my whole heart, with my whole soul and with my whole mind. And right now I'm about to love him with my whole body.

"What are you thinking about?" He asks me as we stop in front of the little drop off, the water rushing into the pool below us.

"That I love you. That I can't believe that I love you, but that I do. I never really knew you, did I?" I ask him, as he drops my hand but pulls me to him, wrapping his arms around me so that we're touching along the length of our bodies. Eric smiles that genuine, beautiful, perfect smile that I didn't know he could smile until just a few days ago.

"Perhaps not, but then I was not letting you know me anymore than you were wanting to." The smile is all amnesia Eric, but the thoughtful perception is entirely real Eric. He's completely right, I needed to meet the one Eric to open myself to the other and he needed to lose the real Eric for a time in order to be vulnerable enough to show me the person inside him: the man whose heart, though un-beating, is every bit as beautiful as the body it lives in. "But you know me now. Everything that I am, everything that I have kept hidden for a thousand years, I've given it to you. I have given myself to you completely, Sookie." Eric looks deep into my eyes as he says that and the fire that starts to burn there is indescribable as he leans down, capturing my mouth with his.

His lips are possessive and hungry, as though the admission that he is completely mine makes him desperate to prove that I'm completely his as well. It's a war he's already won, but the way his lips and fangs and tongue feel against and inside my mouth makes me eager to let him wage the battle anyway.

When we pull apart, we're both breathless even though only one of us actually needs to breathe. Eric looks down on me with eyes that are positively molten, his gaze raking over me from the very top of my head to the tips of my toes.

"Take off your clothes." He commands me, in a voice that's lower and rougher than I've ever heard from him. My body's reaction to it is instant and complete. Without a thought or a word I begin removing everything, until I'm standing in front of him in nothing but the black lace bra and the tiny thong that matches it.

Without saying anything, Eric kneels down in front of me, so that his face is level with my chest, and tilts his head up, pinning me again with the intensity of his desire. Eric never breaks our gaze as his hands come up to cup my breasts, teasing and stroking my nipples through the thin fabric, making them harden into eager, needy peaks and ripping a desperate moan from my mouth.

He goes on like that for long minutes, his hands squeezing and stroking, fondling every inch of my breasts, making me squirm and cry out but never giving me what I most desperately want. Finally, I can't take it anymore and I cup his face in my hands.

"Please Eric." I plead with him. The smile that comes across his face is predatory and dark. It's a look that he's given me many times in the past, but where it once scared me, made me fear that he would do something I neither understood nor was ready for, it now sends a rush of wetness flooding into the tiny triangle of lace between my legs. I want him to claim me, take me, fuck me in every way possible. I want him to show me every single way there is to belong to him.

Eric brings a single finger from where it rests and pulls down the lace of my cup, exposing my breast completely, and leans in, blowing cool air over the already desperate peak and then letting his tongue dart out to tease it, once, twice, three times before taking it into his mouth, sucking hard and letting his teeth nip at it, making my knees go week until I all but collapse into him.

Eric catches me, my breast leaving his mouth, and takes me again in another hungry kiss. As his lips move over mine again, roughly, demandingly, his hands make quick work of the last of my clothes and the remnants of his and then we're naked together in the grass again.

Laying us down so that he covers me completely, Eric watches my face as his hands begin to wander over my body. Our eyes lock as one hand moves to once again fondle my tits, pinching my nipples, rolling them between his fingers, making me thrust up into his hand, and the other moves lower to the juncture of my thighs.

Letting his fingers explore, I feel him part the folds of my pussy and begin to rub along the length of me. I'm already wet and weeping for him and I know that I won't be able to take it much longer when I feel two of his long fingers slide into me, achingly slowly.

"I love watching you while I do this." He whispers to me as his fingers begin to pump in and out. "I love seeing the expressions on your face when any part of me is buried deep inside your beautiful body." His words are dark and I feel as though I shouldn't like them, but I do. I like everything that Eric does to me.

"I love you being inside of me. I never knew it could be like this." I tell him without shame, my hips beginning to lift, trying to drive his fingers ever deeper into me. "I'm so close." I tell him. "Please Eric, I want to come on your cock." Eric leans down and places one fast ferocious kiss on my lips before pulling away to drop heated little nips on every part of my face and neck.

As he kisses me, I feel him position himself at my entrance and push in, strong and sure. I cry out at the feel of him, long and oh so hard, stretching my body to its very limit. We've made love so many times already but the fullness I feel, the completeness, when he's inside of me is still so new, even unexpected. But it always feels so right. This is what was missing with Bill -this feeling that joining our bodies is only the last piece of the puzzle -it's what would be missing with anyone else. It's what I'll only ever feel with him.

After a moment, Eric begins to move, his rhythm passionate, nearly overwhelming. We're making love exactly the way we did that first night, in exactly the same place, and I know it's Eric's way of proving to me that, even though he's himself again, nothing will ever change between us. His love for me, his care, his gentleness will never change. No matter who or what else he might be, with me he will always be the man who first made love to me here, under the stars.

"I love you, Eric." I tell him, over and over again, as he thrusts deep and hard into me. "I'm yours and I always will be." His response is to rain more kisses down on me as his hips move faster and faster. I'm crying out now, my own hips lifting to meet him on every stroke, needing so desperately to come around him and feel him release deep within me, when he lifts his head from my neck and pinning our gazes together again, his eyes wild, almost crazed.

"Tell me Sookie, tell me what you told him. I want to hear you say it again!" At first I'm too mindless to even understand what he's asked, no less figure out which thing he wants me to tell him, but then it clicks into place. Eric never ever thought that I could love him like this. He never truly believed that I would accept him when he returned to himself and, even though he knows now that I do, he still wants to hear my declaration again. I give it to him without hesitation.

"Eric, you are mine!" I tell him. The effect is immediate and I feel him thrust harder, pulling almost all the way out before pushing all the way back in, forcing my body into the soft grass beneath us in the most wonderful way.

"Again!" He commands me.

"Eric, you're mine!" I say again, wrapping my arms and legs more tightly around him, digging my hands into his hair, lifting my head to kiss him wherever I can reach.

"Again!" Eric's thrusts are just shy of brutal now, but it feels nothing but wonderful, I can't think, I can't see; I can barely speak the pleasure is so overwhelming.

"Eric is mine!" I yell one last time and then I'm falling over the edge again, crying and screaming and begging for more even as I feel the whole world collapse in around me.

Through the haze of my pleasure, I feel Eric thrust deep twice more and then he's spilling inside of me, his hips moving erratically, still trying to meld us together.

"And Sookie is mine." He says after one last violent shudder, his whole body collapsing against mine, caging me there in the grass, but not crushing me.

"Yes," I reassure him, petting him soothingly along the length of his back, "yes, I am. I've given myself to you completely too, Eric, and now I'm yours to keep for the rest of my life." I swear, through panting breaths. Eric responds by kissing me gently, softly all over my face before cupping my cheek in his hand and trapping my gaze once more.

"I swear to you, Sookie, you won't ever regret it." He declares ardently. I just smile in return and kiss him back.

"I already know that." I laugh gently, drinking in his happy smile. "C'mon, now we're both sooty!" I say, pushing him off me and taking his hand to 'help' him up. Eric looks down at the pool below us and, before I can even exclaim in surprise, he's picked me up and jumped off the little drop and into the cool water.

It's a shock to my system, but it feels wonderful and we stand there, the water up to Eric's waist and covering me almost to my shoulders, and gently wash each other of all the dirt and horror and stress of the last few days, stopping only to kiss each other now and then.

When we're both clean again, Eric takes me in his arms, lifting me up against him and slightly out of the water. I wrap my arms and legs around him and just stare at him under the slowly lightening sky.

It's so beautiful and peaceful here. I wish more than anything that we could just stay, that we could spend eternity here in this glade in the woods and never have to think about anything but each other, but I know that we can't. It's only about an hour before sunrise now and so we'll have to go back soon, have to go back to everything and everyone that awaits us in real life. It's something that makes me truly sad because, unlike other people, our real lives seem to be absolutely filled with danger and deceit and mayhem. Eric must see the sudden frown on my face, because he cups my cheek with his hand and lays a soft kiss on my nose.

"What is it?" He asks me in a whisper. I wrap myself around him tighter and bury my nose in the curve of his neck.

"I'm just…I wish we could stay here. I'm worried about all the things that will probably go wrong when we wake up tomorrow night. I'm scared about what new problem will rear its head next and I'm worried that, even after everything, Bill won't let us be. He tried to kill you tonight because Antonia convinced him that I was just wasting time with you and that, if you disappeared, I would go back to him. He really thought I still loved him." The hand holding my bottom against him squeezes me tight.

"You and I know the truth. If Bill is unable to accept it, he knows where to find me. I am not afraid of our dear King. Or maybe I'll just let my sexy, feisty, fiery little Fairy take care of it for me." He chuckles as he says the last and I can't help but join him. I guess I was something to see tonight.

"Do you really like me like that? You aren't afraid of me? I'm kinda afraid of me." I say, sobering slightly when I really start to think about it. I've never been less Human then I was tonight and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Eric pins me with a serious gaze, letting me know that he means everything he's about to say.

"I love you like that. I love you every which way you are, Sookie. Every part of you makes you who you are, and you are the only woman who has ever convinced me to give her my heart. So yes, I like you like that. Besides, I don't plan on_ ever_ doing anything that will make you angry enough to point those beautiful, lethal hands at me!" His eyes and mouth break out into a beautiful, amused smile, but I know he means what he says.

"Never!" I swear to him, kissing his neck and jaw and finally his lips. When we pull apart I can see from Eric's eyes that he wants to ask me something else, but he's unsure. "What? Tell me." I prompt him. Taking a deep, unnecessary breath he answers me, his voice soft, unsure of how I'll take what he has to ask.

"Sookie, bond with me? Permanently. I want us to be each others' completely. I want to be one with you for the rest of our lives." It's not a total surprise, what Eric is asking me. We were bonded in the future Claudine showed me, but it's something I hadn't expected him to ask me so soon. After all, he just got his memory back last night. I thought he'd want at least some time to adjust, but his face tells me that he has no doubts about it whatsoever.

I know that I love Eric more than I've ever loved or ever will love anyone, and I know that what he's offering me is the greatest commitment a Vampire can make to another. Bonding with him permanently would mean that we would belong to each other for the rest of my life and that my life (if Claudine was right) would continue for a very, very long time.

The thought of living for centuries on end has no appeal to me on its own. Seeing those I love change and grow old and die as I endure feels as though it would be heartbreaking. But on the other hand, I almost lost Eric tonight. What would I have felt, what would I have gone through, if he had died?

I think that I'm a strong person, but losing the man I love so soon after finding him…it might very well have broken me. How much more horrific would it be to watch as the person you love dies slowly in front of you. Because that's what I would be doing: every day, every night that goes by I would be dying just that little bit more right in front of him. I can't do that to Eric any more than I could watch him do it to me.

But then of course there's the fear I've had since that night in Dallas, when Eric tricked me into drinking his blood, that what I feel will be nothing more than consequence of his blood.

Somewhere deep down I know that the blood is the reason that Bill believed I would go back to him if Eric died. He was sure that, having gotten more of it down me, I would assume that what I felt for him was genuine, instead of just a chemical reaction and that I would cave to it and believe that I had made a huge mistake in leaving him and run back.

It's all so confusing to me, but when I look in Eric's eyes and see him waiting patiently for me to figure out what I want, waiting instead of pushing, giving me the time to work it out on my own, I realize something.

I had Bill's blood on the night I met him. Not just a drop or two but a whole heck of a lot. It's entirely possible, probable actually, that everything I felt for him was based on the blood and, even if it wasn't, I'll never have any way of knowing. He never gave me the chance to find out.

But with Eric, the one drop of blood he tricked me into taking in Dallas, what did it do? It gave me wonderful, terrible, amazing, nasty dreams that were sometimes the highlight of my otherwise dull night and sometimes made me want to hunt him down and kick his ass when I had to stop and actually think about whose name I should be calling out in bed, but they didn't make me believe that I was in love with him, or make me leave Bill and rush to his side. In fact, I was still throwing how much I couldn't_ ever_ love him in his face not two weeks ago.

It didn't stop me from giving him hell at every turn, or yelling at him when I thought he deserved it. It wasn't even the cause of my attraction to him. I can admit now that the attraction started the night we met. That drop of blood might have made my sleeping moments steamier, but it never controlled my waking mind.

And every other drop I've had was more than consensual. I took Eric's blood while he was cursed, because I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted him to be a part of me like I was part of him, I wanted to feel him inside of me the way he felt me. I want that again. I know that my feelings for him, my love for him, is real, and I want to be one with him even more now than I did that night.

"Yes." I say finally, and see Eric give me a questioning look in return. "I mean it." I assure him, and I know that I've already had enough of his blood that he can feel my determination. I've made my decision. Not wasting a second more, Eric's fangs snick down.

"Bite me, Sookie." He says, as his fangs sink into my neck for the second time tonight. The feel of them is always so staggering, but I don't let myself get lost in it until I turn into Eric's throat and bite down hard.

When his blood starts to flow into my mouth, I let go, and I become lost in the sensation of us taking and giving to each other at the same time. We've never done this at the same time before and the experience is indescribable. I feel like I'm floating on a sea of pure light, with only Eric as my anchor. I feel powerful and beautiful and complete. I feel as though every wrong that has ever existed is suddenly right. When Eric pulls back from my neck after having sealed my wound, I know that he feels the same thing, and I realize that what I'm feeling is both my own feelings and his combined. It's amazing. It's perfect. It's right!

Where before our exchange seemed to lead us into a blood-high induced Fairy winter wonderland, what I see before me now is completely different. We're still in the woods, the sun is even closer to coming out, but everything is more. I can see every color of the spectrum in the low light that breaks through the trees, like rainbows breaking through the branches. I can hear every little rustle and chirp for miles around and I can feel the water and the air as though they're silk and satin on my skin. My mind feels both muddled and happy and sharper than it ever has before. And my heart… my heart feels whole.

Lifting me out of the water, Eric carries me through the woods, our tattered and dirty clothes once again forgotten, until we reach my house. When we get there he leads me down to the cubby and pulls me into the bed, on top of him. I don't hesitate to go with him. I wouldn't sleep anywhere else anymore: where Eric is, is where I belong.

Dawn is only a few minutes away, but it doesn't stop us from making love one last time. After the way we joined in blood in the woods, it feels imperative to join in the flesh too.

I kiss every inch of Eric's body: his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, his neck right where I bit him, his beautiful chest, his sculpted stomach, and don't stop until I come to 'v'd' muscles that lead down to his beautiful erection. I never thought that a man's cock could be beautiful, but Eric's is. It's long and thick and hard and it's positively commanding me to taste it, so I do.

This is something that I've never been very good at: it's not something I've done often, but it's something that Eric's made me love. I want him in my mouth almost as much as I want him in my pussy. I want to drive him insane with it and, from the sounds he's making and the feel of his hand fisting into my hair, caressing me roughly, I know that I am.

"Sookie, please!" He begs me as I squeeze his base and nip the tip of his head at the same time. "Please, I want to come inside of you." He begs. Looking up at him, his head still in my mouth, I can see his desperation. Eric's control might be legendary, but for me he's near breaking.

Letting him go with one last gentle suck, I crawl up his body, straddling him as he lays on the bed. Never letting his eyes go, I take him in my hand, rubbing him along my slit and then lower myself on to him. Eric groans long and loud as I take him in completely, his size making it a close fit.

His hands go to my hips, and he begins to help me move up and down on him, as he thrusts up into me from underneath. I cry out when he reaches one long finger down and begins to rub circles on my clit, bringing me to join him on the edge of the cliff.

It only takes a few thrusts more and we're both coming hard for the second time tonight, crying each others' names and babbling incoherent words of devotion to each other.

When the very last bit of pleasure has been wrung from us both, I collapse on top of him, laying my head over his heart, tightening my legs around his thighs and clutching his biceps as though they're the only thing keeping me anchored to this world.

"I love you." Eric whispers, just as the dawn takes him under. I can only hope that, if he didn't hear my reply, he knows deep down to his very soul that I love him with everything that I am. It's my last thought before the stress of two nights of terror and pandemonium, combined with no sleep, overcomes me as well and I'm pulled into a deep oblivion.

When I open my eyes again, there's someone in the cubby with us. At first I'm terrified and I bolt upright, ready to try to protect my sleeping Vampire with every Fairy weapon that I have at my disposal, but then I see who it is.

"Claudine!" I say, blinking and looking again to make sure that I'm not dreaming, although if Claudine is here then I suppose that I am. Claudine just smiles at me, holding out her hand.

I suddenly realize that I'm stark naked and still lying astride Eric, but, since it doesn't seem to bother Claudine at all, I decide I can put aside my prudish sensibilities one more time in twenty-four hours and just go with it. I'm dreaming after all.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her, getting out of bed and walking over to her. She just smiles and hugs me, and then looks past me to the bed and the sleeping Vampire resting there. When I turn to look as well, I see that I'm actually still there, sleeping peacefully, blissfully on top of Eric, who has a beautiful, genuine smile frozen on his lips.

"I just came to say goodbye to you, Sookie. You've made the right choice, and now I'm free to move on. I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. This was the love you were always meant for. Eric was always the one you were meant to have, but I couldn't tell you that before. I could help you along a little, but ultimately the decision had to be yours.

You did well, little cousin, and I promise you that, though the road ahead of you both may never be easy, it will be filled with the kind of love that few people in any of the worlds ever get to experience. Be safe, protect your Vampire and love him and your life will be a long and fulfilling one. Goodbye Sookie." With that, Claudine kisses my hair and then she's gone in a ray of light.

When I try to reach for her, I realize that I'm back on the bed, still wrapped around Eric. It was just a dream. Looking down on him though, I know now that neither of them where _just_ dreams, and I feel a sleepy contentment radiate through my bones. Kissing Eric's chest, I lay my head back down and fall back to my dreams. Dreams filled with Eric and all the wonderful, naughty things we'll do to each other when we both wake again!


End file.
